David Ansen

You could trust that Miller would not shoot this tale in the sentimental style of a TV movie of the week, and he hasn't. He has made an impassioned medical thriller as energized as an action movie, as emotionally and stylistically flamboyant as the operas heard on the soundtrack. [04 Jan 1993, p.50]

A dispiriting attempt to wring a last gasp of mirth from an already dangerously overextended series. [22 Aug 1983, p.73]

You know a romantic comedy is in trouble when you root for the hero not to get the girl.

Improbable as some of the plot may be, Lumet's movie -- directed with artful simplicity -- strikes powerful emotional chords. Running on Empty also happens to be the year's best teen romance: quirky Lorna (Martha Plimpton), in stubborn rebellion against her family's Wasp propriety, is a delightfully real teenager. [03 Oct 1988, p.57]

Doesn't add up to any big deal. But it's a likable, lively little ditty -- one theme, some clever variations -- that never wears out its welcome.

It's not as cool as it sounds.

It sounds grimmer than it plays, thanks to Jenkins's sardonic, deadpan humor and the superb cast, who invest these damaged characters with rich, flawed, hilarious humanity. This bittersweet X-ray of American family dynamics may not be a Hallmark-card notion of a holiday movie, but it's one any son or daughter can take to heart.

But once the couple clinch their bond -- just when the story gets really shameless -- the life drains out of the movie. Love Affair takes such pains to dodge vulgarity it forgets to put anything in its place.

This movie is so unself-consciously wholesome it's almost Gumpian.

With pretty Martin Hewitt as David and pretty Brooke Shields as Jade, what you get is an overwrought teen make-out movie. [27 July 1981, p.74]

Anyone who feels immune to the charisma of Elvis Presley should immediately see This Is Elvis. If you are not transfixed by his sexual aura, his liquid musical ease, his promiscuous stylistic range and his mysterious mixture of shyness and vulgarity, chances are you've been living at odds with the second half of the twentieth century. [04 May 1981, p.44]

An inspired flight of fancy, an oddly poignant examination of the creative process, a rumination on adaptation (orchids to their environment, books to the screen and misfits like Charlie to life) and, in its ultimate irony, a story in which our hero learns a life-altering lesson.

Actually it's relatively clean, downright affirmative (the girls get insurance plans and 90 percent of the take) and resoundingly unfunny. [2 Aug 1982, p.63]

Light of Day has the virtues of sincerity, but that may also be what keeps it so relentlessly mundane. [09 Feb 1987, p.75]

(There's) a half dozen other deftly sketched show-biz desperadoes who make this slight but tangy sleeper such an unpretentious delight.

This stiff-in-the-joints movie has little feel for its setting or period, and crucial chunks seem to have been left on the cutting-room floor. Robert Rossen's Oscar-winning 1949 version has nothing to fear.