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Dancing_P [ 5.5 ]
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Time and time again, Robert Altman's coworkers and co-conspirators have described his approach to filmmaking as maddeningly creative. Altman was prone to change his mind or try radical departures from the material at a moment's notice, resulting in timeless classics or (probably more frequently) shapeless blobs of shit. Somewhere in there lies A Perfect Couple, a cute little romantic comedy that quite unexpectedly turns into a concert documentary for the most terrible supergroup in history. Altman's long history of partnership with Allan Nichols (chiefly responsible for the terribleness of the aforementioned music as writer, composer and bandleader) explains some (but definitely does not excuse) the stilted terribleness at hand.
Beginning as the story of a middle-aged widower from a very strict Greek Orthodox upbringing (Paul Dooley) and his courtship of young hippy-dippy singer Marta Heflin, it develops slowly and organically into a lovely but realistic look at an unconventional May-December romance. It's nothing fantastically original but it works despite seeming unusually streamlined for a filmmaker like Altman. I say seeming, of course, because as soon as the romance gets underway, Altman shifts gears and turns his focus to Heflin's musical pursuits in a highly unconvincing and unwelcome riff on the musical documentary.
Copious footage of the irredeemably shitty Ted Neely-fronted Keepin' Em Off the Streets (a bunch of beardos swathed in white clothes who sing bullshit Earth Mother inspirational garbage and clang tambourines of which Heflin is an oft-abused member) becomes the focus and Dooley and Heflin become incidental. Knowing Altman's way of working, I daresay it seems pretty likely that he became fascinated with the concept midway through the shoot - the problem is that this is so blindingly obvious and so completely unwelcome that it feels like a dirty trick to get us to watch some crap no one in their right mind would ever want to sit through. Something that I didn't care to sit through, in any case. Sorry Bob.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.4 |
| No. Ratings | : 2 | |
| No. Reviews | : 1 | |
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