Purely Joyful Movie!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

...maybe in part because I'm a romantic at heart and maybe in part because I loved the way Ms. McNichol played her character, in spite of the controversy over her mental health. She was splendid! It is the light in which I will always remember her. There were a couple of script continuity issues, but other than that it was a perfect "chick flick," (and I loved the white coat, too! Where can I find one for myself?). I'd like to know when the filming was "interrupted" with Ms. McNichols leave of absence due to mental stress; the editors did a great job interfacing the one year time gap that is stated to have taken place during this time. Thanks, Christy, for sharing your talent in so many ways.

Watchable little semi-soaper, but hardly captivating. Still, two or three funny moments. What amazes me is how slippery and morally highly questionable McNicol is. She plays an invalid (a leg problem), yet she not only isn't the "ugly duckling" whom men shun, but she is even a man-eater - and we are supposed to feel for her! Oh, poor little McNicol, with her leg problem... Poor little McNicol??! She is constantly getting passes from men, and even dumps them without so much as blinking! At one occasion she even has a premeditated one-night affair with a blond stud, and then she tells her newly-found French girlfriend quite non-chalantly that it took him time to get an erection! Makes us viewers wonder why she is so leg-conscious if every guy wants to hump her. Well, almost every guy; the only guy who really shunned her after seeing her leg wrapped up in metal is the guy working on the telephone. But otherwise she seems to be doing just fine with men! No shyness, no lack of success with men, and she throws them away like toys; the way she dumped Carradine was ridiculous. Poor little invalid girl?? I don't think so. And yet we are meant to believe that this woman has a major confidence problem; hence the scene in which she prepares to start playing the flute for a solo concert and somehow manages to throw the notes on the ground out of nervousness. Nervousness?? The rest of the movie shows little or nothing that would suggest that she has confidence problems, so this flute scene is absurd and doesn't fit into the bigger picture. I was also surprised how quickly and eagerly McNicol makes friends with a French woman who is screwing a married guy. On the surface the movie would appear to be a "sentimental story of one crippled woman's struggle for acceptance" (or something like that) but it's nothing like that at all; the writer clearly shifts between this type of movie and a "screw anything that moves - it's the 80s" kind of movie - very confusing.As far as her leg: it's not like she has a big, fat purple balloon growing on her calf muscle. She "only" has a normal-looking metal prosthetic attached to the lower part of her leg, so I really don't understand why the makers of the film try to make it seem as if she is a female Quasimodo or something, at the beginning of the film. It's not like she has a twin head growing out of her neck! Though McNicol is hardly a major catch. Kind of cutish but nothing special, quite average.But what the hell is Carradine doing playing some kind of a (relatively) smooth guy flirting with McNicol and her pal?! This guy was in "Revenge of the Nerds"! But I guess it's the same thing with the Carradines in the movies as it is with the Kennedys in politics: no matter how ugly, unable, or dumb, all the doors are open for a career in movies and politics, respectively.Down with nepotism.If you want to read bogus biographies about the Carradines, and other Hollywood nepotists and morons, contact me by e-mail.

Kristy McNichol gives a good if uneven performance as a crippled flautist--working her way through a series of romantic losers here at home--who travels to a French ski-resort and gets a bright idea: she replaces her cumbersome leg-brace with a cast and finds guys wanting her sexually for the first time. Bumpy romantic comedy begins well, but is really two different pictures, with Kristy's musician going from shyly seductive girl to mercurial, exasperating kid. There are some savvy moments, but mostly in the quietly charming first hour. Once in France, where McNichol hooks up with incredibly patient photographer Michael Ontkean, the filmmakers get too silly, replacing the satiric wit with cheap, blurry sentiment and a pointless discotheque sequence that goes on...and on. **1/2 from ****

Given the title, I expected a little more in common with the Billy Joel song of the same name. But while the heroine at one points tells her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend that he'll find someone to love him just the way he is, her own discovery of that fact is somewhat unclear.Susan Berlanger (Kristi McNichol) is a pretty, talented flautist, who, unfortunately wears a leg brace. Because her disability is visible, Susan is always treated differently, to the point where she begins to feel that people don't see her, they just see her disability. This is also why her love life has been a disaster. She is all set to marry her gay friend, Frank (Tim Daly), in order to help him hide his sexuality to get ahead in business, but decides not to when she realizes that the marriage won't meet her - or his - sexual needs. After she and her best friend, Lisa (Kaki Hunter) experience a series of disastrous relationships, Susan gets booked on a European tour. While in France, Susan hits upon an idea to find out how people will react if they don't know she is disabled - hide the disability. So, she gets a doctor to put a cast on her bad leg, and heads off to a ski resort. Once there, she meets an assortment of colorful characters: Nicole (Catherine Salviat), a single woman having an affair with a married man who stands her up so that she and Susan have to share a room; Francois Rossignol (Andre Dussollier), a former skier who lost a leg; Peter Nichols (Michael Ontkean), a handsome professional photographer there to shoot a ski competition; and Bobbie (Alexandra Paul), Peter's insufferable girlfriend. As Susan's vacation progresses, she does all kinds of things she's never done before, including winning a ski race. Peter's growing attraction to Susan causes his relationship with Bobbie to break up. And while the feelings are mutual, Susan begins to feel uneasy that she is deceiving Peter, but can't figure out how to tell him about her disability. Will she, or will they part without Peter ever knowing? The premise is intriguing, in that the only way Susan can find out how people will feel about her is by hiding her disability. And yet, once she does that, at some point, she will have to come clean about it. Unfortunately, her revelation is done in such an anticlimactic way, that the viewer is left unsure what, if anything, she has learned as a result of her stay at the ski resort. Also, the movie has a disjointed feel to it, leaving the viewer wondering what Susan's bad relationships in America had to do with her adventures in France. Fortunately, the film moves along at a good pace, the action is fun, and the characters are likable, so you don't care too much that it doesn't have the depth it could. But it did leave me wondering how much better it could have been had the writers decided to explore more of Susan's self discovery.The acting, overall, was good. McNichol never fails to give a pleasant performance, and she makes Susan likable in spite of her shortcomings. Her injection of humor into Susan's situation is exceptionally well done. Ontkean makes a wonderful leading man, playing Peter as someone who definitely looks beneath the surface and who is far more interested in what he finds there. Salviat and Dussollier are delightful as people with distinctly European sensibilities, who completely confuse Susan. Hunter does a nice job with Lisa, giving us a woman who knows her shortcomings, and has learned to live with them. The only weak performance was Alexandra Paul as Bobbie, who was so one dimensional that it was painful. While Bobbie was indeed shallow and self absorbed, a good portrayal of her would have given the viewer some sympathy for her losing her man. Paul's performance makes you want to applaud as she stamps off after throwing her final tantrum. The rest of the supporting cast does a good job of keeping things light.Visually, it's a lovely film, especially the ski resort, which has an air of leisure and celebration completely appropriate to the action taking place there.Overall, this is a fun film, and a very enjoyable one, but it still leaves the nagging question of how much better it could have been had it paused to do a little more exploration of Susan's self discovery, and shown you that she was indeed lovable just the way she was.