Main Cast: Tim Browne, Jean Scoppa, Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Jeannie Berlin, Eddie Albert, Audra Lindley
Release Year: 1972
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
In Elaine May's second directorial outing, Charles Grodin stars as Lenny, a slick salesman who, while honeymooning with his new bride, Lila (Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter), begins to have second thoughts about his marriage. Once Lenny spots the gorgeous Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), he is lost forever. Legally divesting himself of poor Lila, he follows Kelly to her upper-middle-class home, where he runs into the formidable opposition of her father (Eddie Albert), who states bluntly that he'd rather be dragged from a horse by his tongue than allow Lenny to become his son-in-law. The picture received critical kudos for Neil Simon's adroit screenplay, May's knowing direction, and Grodin's on-target performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
To call The Heartbreak Kid a companion piece to The Graduate (directed by Elaine May's once and future partner Mike Nichols) is to do it a disservice. A great movie in its own right, it more than holds its own against its better-known predecessor. Still, it would take quite a bit of effort to overlook the similarities. Like The Graduate, its subject is early-life disappointment and its comedy takes the form of pregnant pauses, awkward silences, and general discomfort (all touches more in the tradition of Nichols' and May's work than that of screenwriter Neil Simon). Though funny throughout, this is uncompromising stuff. In a careful performance, Charles Grodin does nothing to make his character likable, but his desperate neediness makes him strangely sympathetic. Similarly, May does nothing to hide the uncomfortable subtext of the film. Grodin's character, a Jew, may convince himself that it's love at first sight driving him to distraction, but the film makes clear he's following a false ideal of blonde, blue-eyed, WASPy affluence. As such, Cybill Shepherd's natural blankness actually works to the film's advantage, contrasting nicely with that of May's daughter, Jeannie Berlin, who, in the part of Grodin's newlywed bride, turns what could have been an ugly caricature into a highly sympathetic three-dimensional character. Comedies this sharp and insightful don't come along too often, making it all the more satisfying that May stands by the courage of her convictions to a bitter end that lends the title added resonance. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
William Prince - Colorado Man; Augusta Dabney - Colorado Woman; Mitchell Jason - Cousin Ralph; Art Metrano - Entertainer; Doris Roberts - Mrs. Cantrow; Herschel Savage; Gina Valentino; Heather Wayne; Marilyn Putnam - Mrs. Kolodny; Paul Thomas; Eric Lee Preminger - Pecan-Pie Waiter; Jack Hausman - Mr. Kolodny; Tim Browne - Kelly's Boyfriend; Jean Scoppa - Flower Girl
Credit
Richard Sylbert - Art Director, Anthea Sylbert - Costume Designer, Peter R. Scoppa - First Assistant Director, Elaine May - Director, John Carter - Editor, Garry Sherman - Composer (Music Score), Cy Coleman - Songwriter, Sheldon Harnick - Songwriter, Larry Fallon - Songwriter, Irving Buchman - Makeup, Owen Roizman - Cinematographer, Michael Hausman - Production Manager, Michael Hausman - Producer, Edgar J. Scherick - Producer, Chris Newman - Sound/Sound Designer, Neil Simon - Screenwriter, Bruce Jay Friedman - Short Story Author
A black comedy examination of love and hypocrisy, the satire begins with the New York City traditional Jewish marriage of emotionally-shallow, self-absorbed nebbish-man-boy, Lenny Cantrow, a sporting goods salesman, (Charles Grodin). While honeymooning at the Doral Hotel on Miami Beach, he meets and pursues a tall, blonde, MidwestWASP, seductively bitchy, but sarcastically witty and gorgeous, coed named Kelly Corcoran (Cybill Shepherd). His unsophisticated and emotionally-needy bride, Lila (Jeannie Berlin, daughter of director, Elaine May), refuses to use sunscreen and consequently develops a severe sunburn, which quarantines her in their hotel room. Lenny begins a rendezvous with Kelly, lying to his wife as to his whereabouts. Lenny recklessly and impulsively decides to dump Lila, ending his ephemeral marriage, in order to pursue unloving Kelly, his false ideal, and ultimate fantasy shiksa-goddess. (The girl he was "waiting for all of his life". He just "timed it wrong".) She is attending college in Minnesota, where her somewhat bigoted, suspicious and overly-protective, hostile father (Eddie Albert) is a relentless obstacle.
Because of his lack of depth and lusty adolescent anxiety, an ongoing comedy of errors befalls Lenny during his courtship with Kelly. Each scene peels back the converging of the morally bankrupt superficial and narcissistic personalities of the characters: Lenny, Kelly, and her dad. It is hyperbole, irony, pointed disregard, and lack of empathy played out as a moral fable, a lesson for the audience to consider before making any permanent life-changing relationship choices, which, ultimately a pathetic Lenny, who brought about his own anguish, never fully comprehends.
