Review of Modern Romance (1981) by Art S — 20 Dec 2016

Albert Brooks makes things funny and painful (even excruciating) for viewers at the same time with this extended skit about an extremely neurotic film editor in an unstable relationship (the instability is his own doing).

Kathryn Harrold is his impossibly patient girlfriend who works in a bank. Things start with Brooks breaking the relationship up because he feels it isn't working; cue a slow motion trainwreck night on Quaaludes.

Brooks tortures himself (and the audience) with every false and real move that a man might make when experiencing attachment anxiety. Of course, he screws everything up - but somehow manages to return to relational harmony (and then royally screws things up again).

The plot aside, it is the little moments that count with Brooks. We smirk as he gets suckered in a sporting store or when he ridiculously recreates George Kennedy's footsteps on the Foley stage. The character Brooks plays isn't as intellectual as Woody Allen nor as stupid as the fictional George Costanza (two erstwhile peers in pain) -- instead, he is the everyman who worries too much.

As a director, Brooks knows how to draw out a specific incident such that viewers can see the pain coming -- but it still resounds with comic reverberations when it hits; he makes a lot out of a little.

I laughed.