Heartburn (1986)

Nora Ephron adapts her best-selling novel (a transparent dramatization of her failed marriage to reporter Carl Bernstein) to the big screen, but in the process falls into the same trap that snares too many filmed versions of popular fiction. In a nutshell, the movie is all dialogue and precious little depth, presenting a bare bones account of marital love and infidelity that skims lightly over the salient points of the relationship without ever scratching any dramatic surface. A large part of its appeal (if not its only attraction) lies in watching the not inconsiderable combined talents of Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, but the popularity of the two stars only undermines their ability (with a script this thin, at any rate) to effectively ply their trade. Viewers will see the actors, not the character each is supposedly portraying, and if proof were needed try to recall in detail afterward anything about their respective roles.

Fmovies: This is my favorite movie and I believe it's incredibly underrated!! The story of the movie is not really as unlikely as it might seem at first... Remember this movie is based on Nora Ephron's semi-autobiography, so it can actually happen!

Meryl once said that her daughter, Mamie, got a better review for her role as Annie, than Meryl did for her role as Rachel, which I really don't agree with. She did an excellent job as usual, and of course Mamie was outstanding too (I guess it runs in the family).

Btw Meryl and Jack is a perfect match on the screen, they have such great chemistry! I could watch this movie 24/7!

I love Carly Simon's song "Coming Around Again". It's so perfect in the movie!

That's all...

When viewing this movie, I en visualized a film making challenge. It was almost like presenting a class of senior year cinematic arts students with a graduate project. Take Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and add a few seasoned comedic supporting members such as Catharine O'Hara, and produce the most boring movie imaginable.

The set was dreary, repetitive, and depressing. Nicholson and Streep took to their characters well, but even their efforts couldn't save this one. The lackluster plot was commonplace and predictable. It played out like a slow moving expanded drama that replicates itself millions of times in American homes. In fact many of you could have watched the same drama unfold in the homes of your neighbors, co-workers or family. So why go to the theater or rent this DVD?

Heartburn fmovies. Am I blind, or did I just see that this film has an overall rating of 6.0/10 on IMDb and a 47% approval rating on RottenTomatoes?

Acting:

Alright, so let me start this review by stating that I'm a die-hard fan of Jack Nicholson. So, I might be slightly transparent about the flaws of the movie, but there aren't many. This film is very hard to get a hold of actually. I stumbled upon a used DVD store and being a collector of Jack Nicholson's films and a huge fan, I immediately purchased it. I hadn't ever heard of this film until then and made a quick research on IMDb and Wikipedia about the movie. This movie's story is written by Nora Ephron and is loosely based on her life and relationship with real-life journalist Carl Bernstein. On paper, the story of the movie goes like this: Divorced woman meets a sort-of heartless playboy, falls for him, marries him, has children with him, and leaves him after figuring out that he's been cheating on her. Sounds so simple, but in reality, it isn't. That's the reason why we have veteran actors like Nicholson and Meryl Streep on board. Meryl Streep is brilliant. Totally. Even in totally clichéd scenes, she performs to her fullest. Many people might be surprised, but this is actually the first film of Meryl Streep I've seen. I had always wanted to see her work ever since learning that she has the most number of Academy Award nominations for Best Actress or Supporting Actress, but never really got around to doing so. I wonder what her really brilliant performances would be like, if this was off the hook itself. Jack Nicholson plays the uber cool guy he always is and as we always have more often than not, there is a scene of him going totally crazy. But I don't want to give away too many things. You should check out the movie for yourself. This movie also marks the feature-film debut of Kevin Spacey, whom I was quite surprised to see actually, but it turned out that it was only a small cameo.

Story, Screenplay and Direction:

Enough about actors. Lets get down to the story, screenplay and ultimately, the execution of the overall film. This film is ultra-realistic. Except a couple of teeny-tiny moments in the film, you'll be surprised at how super realistic that this film is. Being born in the 90s, I was able to get a slight sense of how life revolved in the 80s and was super-thrilled and totally upset in not being able to experience the US of that era. That is also where the film goes awry, in a sense. It is so realistic, that it loses itself onto you at a point where you wouldn't know what is going on. There are hints of Mark (Jack Nicholson) being a brilliant and a sincere reporter, but we really don't get to see much of that. However, we do get to see a couple of scenes of Rachel (Meryl Streep) working in her NY paper where she's a food journalist, but it doesn't go beyond that. Basically, the emphasis is so much on the character's emotions, especially Streep's, that the film kind of weighs down a bit when you reach the 58 minute mark. Other than this slight niggle, this film is amazing. Streep showcases her character's emotions so perfectly that you actually start to feel for her and get a tight sense of what her character is going through. Jack Nicholson shines in whatever scene he's in, as always, but is ultimately weighed down by a superb display by Meryl Streep. I was surprised that she hadn't gotten an Oscar Nomination for this, but hey, Nicholson didn't either, for 'The

Let's face it, these aren't the two most likable people on the planet, but that's only because writer Nora Ephron may have been a little too hard on herself. (Actually, she's hard on most everyone in this.) We care about this relationship, and the performances ofthe excellent cast make it intriguing at first, but viewers are just as likely to grow impatient with these characters as they do with each other. It's worth seeing, but a hard film to love.

Now, some words about the Carly Simon song, "Coming Around Again." I heard the song before I saw the movie and it no doubt affected my viewing of it. So many movies seem to just tack on any old song at the end credits, but this song really captures the essence of love and marriage and brings out all the emotions of a great film scene in merely a few minutes. I cannot believe the overblown "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun" (also overblown) won the 1986 Oscar for Best Original Song, and "Coming Around Again" was not even nominated! Perhaps this is why Carly Simon won her Oscar for "Let the River Run" two years later, to make up for this gross omission. (She would also duet with Streep during the end credits of "Marvin's Room"--an even better film.) The song alone is reason enough to see "Heartburn".

It is some years since I saw this film, but I definitely thought at the time it was vastly under-rated, and now that I have seen the voter's scores for this, I am surprised all over again. Obviously, I have to log off and go to the video store to refresh my memory, but: the story was great, the song Joni Mitchell contributed was one of her all-time bests, and how could Meryl Streep ever be in anything that wasn't worthwhile? By the way, the book was better, punctuated with recipes. It is an autobiographical tale, which bursts the balloon of the Watergate heroes and is definitely one of the most entertaining and realistic of the cinematic versions of life and love.