hyped garbage

Don't Believe the Hype

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The ultimate chick flick, 1974's The Way We Were follows Katie Morofsky, a serious-minded college student and radical who works overtime at very liberal political causes that have developed through the turmoil of WWII and though she is the hardest working gal on campus, things don't always go as effortlessly for her as she would like.Enter into Katie's life a guy named Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford),a golden boy to whom everything comes easy and who takes life as it comes. Katie and Hubbell meet in college and she is immediately smitten with him, though she tries to fight it. Hubbell admires Katie's spirit, though he doesn't really love her, and from this springs one of the most moving and beautiful love stories ever put on celluloid, ending during the early 1960's.This movie draws you in immediately because Katie and Hubbell are both people that we can relate to and we understand their feelings for each other from the beginning and even though these people are polar opposites, we want to see them make this relationship work, which is further complicated by their conflicting political convictions. Katie is all about making a difference in the world and Hubbell wants to take things as they come and not quite as seriously as Katie does.The on screen chemistry between Streisand and Redford is off the charts and Streisand had to fight hard to get Redford to do the film. He rejected the role after reading the original script and Streisand had re-writes done immediately in order to beef up Hubbell's role.Pollack's sensitive direction and effective support from Bradford Dillman, Patrick O'Neal, and Viveca Lindfors also deserve mention here, but it is the magic chemistry generated by Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford that made this movie the instant classic it became. Needless to say, the classic Oscar winning theme song, flawlessly performed by Streisand, didn't hurt.

The Way We Were is a romantic film about a handsome young man and a radical and ordinary looking Jewish girl that features Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.The screenplay by Arthur Laurents.It was based on his college days at Cornell University and his experiences with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Sydney Pollack directs.Katie Morosky is the secretary of the campus Young Communist League. Hubbell Gardiner,to whom Katie is fascinated due to fact that he is not only incredibly handsome and the top athlete on campus, but also writes great fiction for their short story class. Unfortunately,for all of his charms and talents, however, he's basically weak: He drifts into love affairs on the strength of drunken excuses and drifts out if the girl has too independent a mind. Katie does.She can't stand Hubbell's WASP friends with their jokes about Eleanor Roosevelt and their endless weekend cocktail parties. Hubbell, on the other hand, suggests that she find an additional mode of address to supplement her basic one, the impassioned political harangue. Anyway, they have nothing in common. But nevertheless,they they fall in love and get married and they move to Hollywood.They arrive roughly during the McCarthy period, and of course Katie is outraged in defense of the Hollywood 10 and Hubbell doesn't care. So we're all set up for the big obligatory scene where Katie stands up for principle and Hubbell chickens out at a HUAC hearing.Inexplicably, the movie suddenly and implausibly has them fall out of love and they split up.Overall,it is an engrossing, if occasionally ludicrous, hit tearjerker with Pollack, Streisand, and Redford doing a good job of bringing Laurents' script to the screen.It is enjoyable as a star vehicle for its handsome stars - Redford and Streisand - in their only film together.Although it does not resolve anything in the end and it turns out to be a talky melodrama with politics in the background,the stars manages to make the film a hit classic inspite of its limitations.

I was relatively young when this film first came out. I, like many others, thought it was great, and loved Streisand and Redford and the theme song. I recently saw TWWW again, nearly 40 years later, and my opinion has changed dramatically. I cannot deny that Redford and Streisand definitely seem to have some kind of chemistry. And, as I felt the first time, Barbra represented every ugly duckling, gay or straight, who somehow manages to capture the prize. Via Barbra's performance, we can easily imagine what it must have been like to lie down with a prince. This, I think, may be one reason why the film had a certain level of success. Barbra also had moments where she "spoke the truth" with passion and intensity. I think people related to this outspokenness, this gutsiness, this willingness to take chances and not apologize for one's opinions. Barbra was also the "outsider" -- she was the smart Jewish girl who knew she had to work harder, study more, and fight for what she wanted, because nothing would come to her easily. It is for these reasons why I think the movie resonated. But the reality is: The movie is not about anything, not really. What, exactly, is the plot? They meet in school, they meet years later, they fall in love, they get married, he has an affair, they divorce, they meet again... okay, so what? Barbra, who does have tons of talent, but in this film looked like she was performing her graduate project for Acting 101, spends a lot of time arguing and getting upset about things. But whatever those things are seem to be only tangentially connected/related to the rest of the story (if you can call it that). Bob, yes, stunning to look at, coasts through the film with little to do or say. He didn't want to do the film, and I can see why. Yeah, he looks great, but what is the emotional arc of his character? A lot was cut from this film and as a result, it seems disjointed. There is an inordinate amount of time spent on Bob's career as a screenwriter in Hollywood while a pregnant Barbra tends to their little beach house. And yet everyone seems miserable and unhappy. Voices were raised, but nothing really happens. Near the end when Barbra has apparently given birth to their child (after it's clear that their relationship is over), Bob shows up at the hospital. Barbra is perfectly coiffed and made-up as if she's just come back from a spa. He stands there, emotionless, ready to abandon her and their newborn child. We're supposed to like him? I couldn't stand him. In fact, James Wood, who we meet early on in the film, who seems to be Barbra's quasi-boyfriend in college and who seems to support everything she was trying to do, is clearly a better man for her--but he wasn't as handsome. Life is cruel, isn't it? Finally, the theme song: Yes, it is a beautiful song for what it is and Barbra sings it beautifully. Who knew that it would become an iconic song and help define her career? She didn't even want to sing the song--she felt it was too simple. She had to be talked into it. So, finally, in the end, what are we left with? A unique opportunity to see Barbra and Bob dressing in period costumes, lots of bad, bad lighting, a plot-less rambling "story" that does not stay any one place long enough for us to care about much of anything, lots of intense arguing and challenging others from Barbra, and lots of stoic looks from Bob. And yet, it was a big hit. Like I said at the beginning, it was Barbra's "ugly duckling" status and "landing the prince" that I think resonated with a large part of the audience. At least it did with me... back then. At this point in time, I just kind of stared at it in amazement and said, "What exactly is this all about?"

When Marvin Hamlisch died several weeks ago, I suddenly found myself wanting to watch this movie, having never seen it before but reading and hearing about it over the years and what a classic it was. So I added it to my Netflix list of DVD's for delivery. The famous song that Hamlisch wrote with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Barbra Streisand's vocals is here but in a different version than the one I heard on the radio over the years which had a more contemporary '70s vibe than the more orchestral version played here. Such a touching and memorable song that was and hearing it in the score quite frequently in the picture made the whole thing almost perfect. I said almost because, as many of you reading this probably know, director Sydney Pollack had cut a couple of pertinent scenes that, when I watched the accompanying short doc that was also on the disc that showed these sequences, made sense why things happened at the end when they did. I mean, watching the film without them made things a little confusing but still had a bittersweet romantic effect that still gave a somewhat touching climax due to the talents of Pollack, Streisand, Hamlisch, and especially leading man Robert Redford. The whole period from the late '30s to the '50s was so fascinating to look at and Arthur Laurents' screenplay was awash in dialogue that was to die for especially between Barbra and Robert. Really, all I'll say now is The Way We Were is still something worth seeing and thinking about afterwards...