SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Either the producers behind Used People are incredible salespeople or there was once something in this screenplay which attracted the amazing cast that proliferates this film. Unfortunately, whatever charm may once have been inherent in the story fails to make its way to the screen in the end product.The story centers on a NYC Jewish matriarch Shirley MacLaine, who is taken aback following her husband's funeral when Italian charmer Marcello Mastroianni introduces himself as a friend of the deceased who has loved her from afar for years. Around this rather astounding declaration, MacLaine and Mastroianni's extended family spins in their own assorted subplots. MacLaine has two daughters - Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden - with whom she has embattled relationships with. Her young grandson, convinced that the spirit of his grandfather is protecting him, runs about doing one dangerous stunt after another. Meanwhile, her mother Jessica Tandy and her best friend Sylvia Sidney kvetch from the sidelines. Everything gets tied up in a neat little bow in time for the U.S. moon landing.The film is obviously trying to be something in the same vein as Moonstruck, but its fails spectacularly and only increases appreciation of that earlier film. The bulk of the film's problems stem from the screenplay and the characters. Did there really have to be this many people? Bates is a great actress, but her character is too generic. By contrast, Harden is so off-the-wall that no scene with her can possibly be taken seriously. Harden spends the film donning one cinematic disguise after another - one moment she is Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, in another scene she is Bonnie Parker from Bonnie and Clyde, etc. This is obviously a woman with something pathological wrong with her and the fact that almost no one in the film addresses it is disturbing.Tandy and Sidney are fun as the old-timers, but they are given limited screen time. And even with that it is hard to dismiss the notion that Tandy is miscast and Sidney should have been given her role instead.Most damning of all is that it is impossible to root for a romance between MacLaine and Mastroianni. I usually enjoy MacLaine, but she is playing a cast-iron shrew here. She comes off as an utterly joyless woman who gets her jollies by picking other people apart - especially those unwilling or unable to defend themselves. When the good-natured Bates finally summons the courage to escape her mother's home and malignant influence, she should be given a moment where she lays out how MacLaine has denigrated her. Instead, somehow MacLaine gets a foolish rant about how everything impacts her - revealing the utter selfishness in an unlikable character. We can see no reason why anyone with an iota of intelligence would fall for such a charmless person - and this ends up making the otherwise charming Mastroianni seem either delusional or insane. If we have nothing invested in the romantic central pairing, then the film can only be considered an abject failure.This is the kind of film where literally every character on screen is given a manufactured crisis that can then be solved magically by the climax. MacLaine will find love with Mastroianni, Tandy and Sidney will find satisfaction in their twilight years, Harden will learn to put away her childish game and become a mother to her needy son. It is the kind of film where Bates has barely left MacLaine's sphere of influence to launch a new life across the country, before she has returned a "success" - which means she shows up at a family function with a new hairstyle.A really brazen and shallow film that would work far better as a low-rent sitcom.

This story about real people falls right into the category of "Moonstruck" and "Once Around". Todd Graff's story and subsequent screenplay deals with the ups and downs of a Jewish family in late 60's Queens, New York City, and the budding romance between a widow and an Italian stranger.Beeban Kidron's movie is full of fabulous characters played wonderfully by Shirley Maclaine, Marcello Mastroianni, Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and the ever enjoyable Marcia Gay Harden. Look also for veteran actress Sylvia Sidney who puts in a fine turn. A very satisfying movie to make you laugh and cry.Wednesday, July 21, 1993 - Waverley Pinewood Cinema

What a wonderful little movie! Simple story of thwarted lives and new-found love boasts one of the best casts in movie history.Shirley MacLaine stars as a Jewish widow in 1969 New York who is pursued by a strange Italian, Marcello Mastroianni. He's waited for 23 years for her to be available. She has 2 troubled daughters, Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden. Bates is fat and unhappy; Harden is nuts. Her mother, Jessica Tandy, is afraid of anything new. Also along for the ride are Sylvia Sidney, Joe Pantoliano, Louis Guss, Charles Cioffi, Bob Dishy, Doris Roberts, Helen Hanft, and cute Matthew Branton.With 1969 New York as a backdrop, anything is possible. The Mets win the World Series.... We land on the moon..... And Mastroianni lands MacLaine! Simple, sweet, and beautifully acted.The accents waver a tad, but on the whole this film is well written and acted. Tandy and Sidney are splendid as the old women looking for once last thrill--they move to Florida.... Bates and Harden are heartbreaking as the bickering sisters.... MacLaine and Mastroianni are perfection.A rare chance to see 4 Oscar winners in one film!

If this is not (intentionally or otherwise) a pilot for a TV series, what is it? Episodic, altogether lacking in unity and narrative flow, there is enough caricature and stereotyping to offend the sensibilities of most Jewish- and Italian-Americans. To understand the characters' motivations, a viewer must look beyond what is presented here - i.e., must imagine why these characters act as they do, since the explanations are not forthcoming in the film. If you were left wondering what is going to happen next to Pearl, her daughters, her grandson, her new husband and his family - all of their situations left open-ended - you were more absorbed in this claptrap than most viewers are likely to be.The performances are not at all bad, but then, one-dimensional characters don't present much of a challenge.