Main Cast: Michael Ontkean, Margot Kidder, Ray Sharkey, Jerry Hall, Jan Miner, Natalie Wood
Release Year: 1980
Country: US
Run Time: 116 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Director Paul Mazursky's follow-up to his 1978 hit An Unmarried Woman found this filmmaker creating a feature-length homage to the François Truffaut classic Jules and Jim. Willie and Phil begins with Jewish intellectual schoolteacher Willie (Michael Ontkean) meeting gregarious Italian-American fashion photographer Phil (Ray Sharkey) at a screening of Jules and Jim. The two hit it off immediately and soon find their circle of two expanding to three when they meet Jeanette (Margot Kidder), a free-spirited Southerner who has moved to New York City to figure out her life. Jeanette soon moves in Willie, but the three find themselves in a romantic triangle that constantly shifts over the next nine years as each of the three struggles to find their destiny while honoring the love they feel for each other. Mazursky would later remake another foreign classic (Boudu Saved From Drowning) into his hit Down and Out in Beverly Hills ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Review
Although it boasts uniformly strong performances and typically warm direction from Paul Mazursky, Willie and Phil never manages to realize its grand ambitions. The first problem is the script, which tries to mimic the structure of Jules and Jim too closely (right down to the odd voice-over), while also widening the story's framework to make commentary on the value shifts that challenged young America during the 1970s. As a result, the story line gets buried and never builds the kind of momentum necessary to genuinely move the audience. The second problem is the characters, who are interesting but somewhat unsympathetic. Willie is a narcissist who often chases whims at the expense of those he cares about, Jeanette is all too willing to let others suffer for her free-spirited nature, and Phil is often frustratingly passive in his deference to the other two. Despite these problems, Willie and Phil remains watchable thanks to the sheer talent of everyone involved. Mazursky shows great attention to the details of how people interact, resulting in a number of believably witty set pieces. Highlights include Willie and Phil reminiscing about how they beat the draft board and Willie's parents submitting Willie and Jeanette to a polite but intense interrogation about when they are going to get married. Mazursky also gets great performances from his three leads. Ontkean makes Willie's sweet yet passive-aggressive nature believable, Kidder is radiant as the beguiling yet fiercely independent Jeanette, and Sharkey steals many scenes as he brings Phil's struggle between traditional values and an adventurous spirit to life. Willie and Phil further benefits from lush cinematography by Sven Nykvist and a sprightly jazz score from Claude Bolling that suits its gentle mood nicely. In the end, Willie and Phil is probably too self-indulgent for most viewers, but its solid performances and ambition may win over fans of Mazursky's work. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Julie Bovasso - Mrs. D'Amico; Tom Brennan - Mr. Kaufman; Louis Guss - Mr. D'Amico; Kathleen Maguire - Mrs. Sutherland; Kaki Hunter - Patti Sutherland; Kristine de Bell - Rena; Alison Cass Shurpin - Zelda Kaufman Number 4; Christine Varnai - Zelda Kaufman Number 3; Laurence Fishburne - Wilson; Walter N. Lowery - Park Bum; Helen Hanft - Used Car Salesperson; Hubert J. Edwards - Black Kid; Alvin Alexis; Sol Frieder; Cynthia McPherson; Donald F. Muhich; Tom Noonan; Lionel Pina; Rick van Nutter - Official Clerk; Jill Mazursky - Jill; Robert Townsend; Karen Montgomery; Eivind Harum - Igor; Kitty Muldoon
Credit
Terry Donnelly - Associate Producer, Albert Wolsky - Costume Designer, Terry Donnelly - First Assistant Director, Paul Mazursky - Director, Donn Cambern - Editor, Claude Bolling - Composer (Music Score), Georges Delerue - Composer (Music Score), Claude Bolling - Musical Direction/Supervision, Pato Guzman - Production Designer, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Paul Mazursky - Producer, Tony Ray - Producer, Ernie Bishop - Set Designer, Edward Stewart - Set Designer, Dennis L. Maitland - Sound/Sound Designer, Les Fresholtz - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Minkler - Sound/Sound Designer, Arthur Piantadosi - Sound/Sound Designer, Paul Mazursky - Screenwriter
The film is set in the 1970s and amidst the counterculture chic of the '70s. Willie, a high school English teacher who plays jazz piano (Michael Ontkean), and Phil, a fashion photographer (Ray Sharkey), meet coming out of the Bleecker Street Cinema where Jules et Jim has just been shown and become friends. They both fall in love with Jeannette, a girl from Kentucky, (Margot Kidder).
Critical responses
The film was reviewed by Pauline Kael in The New Yorker. "It could be that the theme of Jules et Jim, which preoccupies Mazursky - woman as the source of life and art, and woman as destroyer - is just what he can't handle. The ad for Willie & Phil does bring out the film's latent subject: we see the open mouth of a giant goddess who is holding two men in the palm of her hand. They reach up to her with their offerings - one with a bottle of wine, the other with a bunch of flowers. She may be breathing life into these dwarf suitors or preparing to devour them along with their gifts. Either way, she's a source of awe and terror. All through the picture, Mazursky has been trying to demystify what he experiences as mystifying. This movie is a little monument to screwed-up notions of what women are." [1]
