Compromising Positions

A delicious adaptation by Susan Isaacs of her novel, directed with a light, knowing touch by Frank Perry. It’s a blithe, sparkling, sophisticated comedy-mystery laced with dark humor that couldn’t be more welcome in the current summer avalanche of teen movies. How gratifying to hear once again dialogue that crackles with wit and humor (and doesn’t even require subtitles!). Read full review

It's all very humorous and engaging, if only for proving that American whodunits don't have to have car chases and brutality; and it has a wicked eye for the vacuity of middle-class good life and what it may conceal. Lots of feelthy girl talk, too. Read full review

Although Compromising Positions is supposed to be a comedy and a mystery, the film's comedy is of such a high order that the rather ordinary question of the identity of the murderer seems to be interruptive of Mr. Perry's and Miss Isaacs' otherwise nastily funny, suburban satire. Reduced to its essentials, Compromising Positions is ''Nancy Drew and the Case of the Dissembling Dentist.''... A very entertaining film. Read full review

Susan Sarandon does inspired double-takes - just letting her beautiful dark eyes pop.

Compromising Positions is not a big movie in any way, and it has its share of rough spots, particularly toward the end. But it's a late-summer concession to grown-up tastes after a season of intergalactic kids. And it's hard to hate a movie that contains this sentiment, again delivered deadpan: "God, I'd love to kill a dentist." [30 Aug 1985, p.D15]

Compromising Positions has its problems, especially Julia's weak performance. But it's often on target, exposing the mechanics of the heroine's marriage, the woman herself and her languorous community where two patrol cars respond to a call about graffiti. [6 Sept 1985, p.23]

Compromising Positions has acting talent to burn and enough drollery to pass the time quite pleasantly. [9 Sept 1985, p.90]

There's a good movie lurking somewhere in Susan Isaacs' script of her comic murder mystery novel "Compromising Positions" but neither Isaacs nor director Frank Perry has found it. [30 Aug 1985, p.A]

Based on screenwriter Susan Isaacs' first novel, the film is nearly undone by Frank Perry's lazy direction. Good performances from the entire cast, especially Sarandon, save the movie. Read full review

If I were simply to describe the story of Compromising Positions, it might sound like lighthearted, slightly kinky fun. But the movie has such a bitter core, such a distaste for its characters, that I ended up feeling uncomfortable in its company. I think it's supposed to be a comedy, but I felt depressed by its world of rich, neurotic, bitchy suburbanities. Read full review

Falling midway between a campy send-up of suburban wives soap operas and a legitimate thriller, Compromising Positions, from the 1978 novel by Susan Isaacs, emerges as a silly little whodunnit that's a mild embarrassment to all involved. Read full review

Unfortunately, Frank Perry's unbelievably ham-handed direction obscures most of what is craftsmanly and pleasant in Isaacs's work, pushing the material toward a smug, sloppy, heavily early-70s satire on the horrors of suburban life. A very mixed bag, but those who've missed a storytelling sense in American movies might want to have a look. Read full review

It's particularly disappointing because Perry -- a talented director whose credits include "David and Lisa," "Diary of a Mad Housewife," "Rancho Deluxe" and "Mommie Dearest" -- has assembled a fine cast whose considerable talents go to waste, smothered by the plodding script and stale social commentary. It's also disappointing because the film opens with such promise: several wonderful scenes, some genuine laughs, snappy dialogue. Then the Novocain sets in. [3 Sept 1985, p.B11]