Memories of Me

The best moments in the movie involve tightly knit dialogue scenes between King and Crystal, who co-wrote the movie. Their timing has the almost effortless music of two professionals who have spent their lifetimes learning how to put the right spin on a word. Read full review

Sharply written by Billy Crystal and ably directed by Henry Winkler, Memories of Me turns out to be an enjoyably sentimental surprise - what it has going for it that the psychodramatic versions don't is a sense of humor, but it covers the same serious issues with a similar amount of depth. [07 Oct 1988]

It's to Crystal's, King's and Williams' credit that they give engaging performances considering the cliched nature of the script. And, it's a measure of first-time director Winkler's fortitude that he plows through the material and keeps Memories of Me bouncing along when a less imaginative director would have abandoned the picture to its own devices. [07 Oct 1988, p.9]

Memories of Me is not great cinema, but like the best Hollywood schmaltz, it's delightful. [07 Oct 1988, p.E6]

Given its defiant adherence to cliche and avoidance of originality, Memories of Me should be boring, but the cast keeps it interesting, and many of the lines, fortunately, are amusing. [07 Oct 1988, p.F13]

Memories of Me, directed by ex-Fonz Henry Winkler, is a "Long Day's Journey into Schmaltz," in which an already overripe father-son conflict is further sugared by large doses of show-biz sentimentality. [07 Oct 1988, p.A]

An uneasy blend of neurotic comedy and mawkish sentimentality. Read full review

In Memories of Me, nothing goes unsaid; its banalities are triumphant, its maudlin flourishes build to maudlin crescendos. Read full review

A film that assumes it's up to the job of dealing with life and death and love, but is not even up to dealing with lobsters. Read full review