Highly Overrated But Still Good

Captivating movie !

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"The Morning After" is a very strange movie, mainly because it seems like two completely different movies put together. On one hand, it's a murder mystery with a chief suspect on the run attempting to prove her innocence. On the other hand, it's also a study of two completely different people thrust together and developing some sort of relationship. To tell the truth, I would have preferred if the movie had completely stuck to the second kind of story. The murder mystery is standard stuff at best, right down to the climatic man to man struggle. But I did find the relationship between the characters played by Fonda and Bridges to be interesting. Both characters are interestingly written, and the performances by both actors help considerably to sell these fictional characters. While the murder mystery angle of the movie is not that well done - making this portion of the movie tired and familiar - the parts of the movie that focus on the Fonda and Bridges characters interacting are good enough that the movie despite its flaws is worth a look.

One night partying, drinking and having some fun. The next morning she wakes up next to a dead body. "How did I got here? I don't remember anything of what happened last night. How do I get out of this? Did I killed this guy?" That's what crosses the mind of Alex (Jane Fonda), an alcoholic and decadent actress whose major problem with drinking led her to this living nightmare. To help with both her long time problem and this surprising new one comes an ex-cop (Jeff Bridges) who also had a bad history with alcohol.This film noir look-a-like is more of a drama about these two people helping each other overcoming bad things than a movie concerned in solving the murder of the guy who was with Alex. It is more interesting to see how these unusual couple act together than to stay focused on the thrilling aspects of the story and its revelations.Not much of a memorable film, "The Morning After" is a good opportunity to see Sidney Lumet directing Fonda (Oscar nominated for her role here), Bridges, Raul Julia (playing the hairdresser Jackie, husband of Alex) and Kathy Bates (on a minor role). It's a simple project but has great performances from everyone involved. Light and funny scenes between Bridges and Fonda fighting each other over a wrecked car's door or the magic trick pulled by the woman to make people disappear (always fails) are priceless.Positively enjoyable, a good film indeed. 9/10

The Morning After opens with an extraordinarily effective scene prototypical of director Sidney Lumet's pared-down building of tension. As Jane Fonda crawls out of bed, we sense her hangover, one of those inordinately miserable mornings when nothing about you is sufficiently functional, and we also sense how accustomed she's become to these mornings as she is not only passably functional but also recognizes herself in the mirror and indeed spills some gin into a glass, speculating about the guy in her bed. Who is he? She doesn't comprehend the true gravity of her predicament until she turns him onto his back. She sees no cop is going to buy her story, so she attempts to remove all the evidence of her stopover. And then she rambles back out, into the intense Los Angeles light. And in a shot from high overhead, she seems like a lab rat, ensnared in some sort of a experiment. It's so well directed that we almost forget how preposterous it is to think this frame-up would ever work. This beginning promises an exceptional thriller. Alas, The Morning After never matches its initial potential, not as a thriller, at least. The narrative has some gaping disparities in it, and thrillers need to be impermeable. This one chalks various elements up to pure coincidence, the ultimate motives are flimsy at best and the fact that the body keeps reappearing like a cartoon or a take-off on The Trouble with Harry brings the movie too close to qualifying as '80s schlock for one to become seriously absorbed in the plot. But The Morning After merits a look anyhow, owing to the characters that it cultivates, and the performances of Fonda and Jeff Bridges in the two leads. She plays an alcoholic actress long past her heyday. He plays an ex-cop who happens to be fixing his car right where she topples into his back seat and implores him to get her away from there, quick. Bridges stays in a petty, manufactured shed, where he repairs appliances. This is all Fonda needs. She's a veteran of the live-fast-die-young subscription, her friends all bartenders and drag queens, her separated husband Raul Julia the most upmarket hairdresser in Beverly Hills. Nevertheless Bridges is reliable and sound, and she could do with a friend. Naturally it's axiomatic that they fall in love. The plot of The Morning After is not nearly as well captured or interesting as the day-by-day grinds of these characters. Actually, I can picture a movie that would omit the murder and just trail the genuine human development between Fonda and Bridges. The thriller filler isn't needed, although given that they used it, couldn't they have made it credible? The entire murder plot gets such slapdash treatment that perhaps I oughtn't have been startled by the big scene in which the killer's exposed. I've seen innumerable revelations in innumerable thrillers, but seldom one as transparent as this one, where the surprises are just announced in an improbable monologue. Indeed, the fact that nearly every opinion I've heard or read of this film seems unanimous in terms of James Hicks' script, including mine, even down to the 'It starts off well but then it gets really forced and jerry-built' gist, it seems pretty clear-cut what makes the film not quite work, though it'd be a misstep to write this movie off simply because the story is so rickety. It's worth making an allowance for due to the performances. Fonda and Bridges are superb in the film, and their rapport, founded on skeletons in the cupboard, bitterness and ulterior motives, gets especially remarkable. They create tangible unspoken feelings together, and they have some dialogue that feels more alive than most starry-eyed chatter in the movies. Before the schmaltzy final scene, not even close to prototypical of Lumet, there's a single shot in which all Bridges and Fonda do is face each other, and we know, and fee, that they want to have sex with each other. It's just energy, and it works wonders. I also admire how Lumet reinforces every color. Living in Los Angeles is part of the debilitating influence on the character played by Jane Fonda. All color is exaggerated: red redder, blue filters, orange hazes. He creates an L.A. comprised of vast flat surfaces of pastels and aggressively sunlit exposed areas. He traps the inebriated Fonda on this landscape like a helplessly insignificant insect sought for squashing by unknown feet, and the imagery makes the whole first hour of the movie much more ominous than it merits. Too bad they couldn't have take steps with the script.

"The Morning After" is a tepid thriller about an alcoholic has-been actress (Jane Fonda, whose performance was inexplicably nominated for an Academy Award) who wakes up one morning with a dead man at her side and no recollection of what occurred the night before. She later happens upon an occasionally racist ex-cop (Jeff Bridges) who decides to help her. Of course by the time Bridges and Fonda are sucking face the viewer has already pieced everything together. Director Sidney Lumet, who helmed the successful adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," should know that if you're going to make a whodunit, there should be more than one possible suspect.