Paul (Jeff Daniels) is a womanizer. It ruined his marriage, as his wife divorced him about one year ago. He is repentant, naturally, but just can't seem to stop chasing the females. Going home to Pennsylvania for a wedding, he encounters his ex-wife, his children, his dotty mother, his alcoholic father, and the bride, his jittery sister. While waiting for the wedding to occur, Paul and his family go through one trial after another. Paul even makes passes at one of the bridesmaids. Will he ever learn? This film is so tuned to reality that it is a downer to watch. Daniels gives an outstanding performance as the likable guy with big flaws. Sikes also does a fine job as the ex-wife with a lot of baggage. The ending strives to approach a more upbeat tone. Fans of Daniels will want to see this work. All other viewers should be cautioned that it is not a romantic comedy. It is a dark comedy at best, with the happy romance vibes registering a zero on the love meter.
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zoquera2 November 2019It's beyond fiction when he calls the married woman "beautiful" . Makes zero sense takes you right out of what might have been a passable movie.
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mark.waltz14 July 2022And now she's gotten their daughter to hate him too. Fortunately, the teenage son knows about the truth, so the blame isn't all placed on Jeff Daniels. Ex-wife Cynthia Sikes got the children and the house that he bought before they were married, and he just pays the bills. The film doesn't really give us much details about the reason the marriage broke up. In fact, a flashback scene shows them happy at Halloween and all of a sudden, it's revealed that the divorce was very bitter and he really doesn't want to go to his sister's wedding, knowing that she'll be there. What is unaware of is the fact that sites and the kids have moved in with mom Cloris Leachman and dad Tom Allen, a drunk whom Daniels is embarrassed by.
There's also Judith Ivey as the wife of the man Daniels accidentally ran off the road, and when he finds her on the side of the road, Daniels picks her up and makes a play for her which goes sour when he accidentally destroys her bridesmaid dress. At this point, it becomes difficult to feel sorry for anybody in Daniels' family outside of Leachman and her grandson, but there is so little detail provided that the audience has a hard time even getting to know them let alone be interested in their situation.
This film seems to have had hardly any showings, and the problem is in its script and the direction. Certainly the country setting is beautiful, starting with the house that Leachman lives in, but the lives of the characters are so messed up that nothing about it becomes even remotely humorous. It's a great cast completely wasted, playing neurotics that on paper might have seemed interesting, but it's another case of writing where just because you put these incidents down on paper doesn't mean that they're going to seem real. Good casting go for Daniels and the actor playing his son as they really do look as if they were related. -
Zombuster13 May 2020More of a drama, this movie is one of the saddest movie about love, it only show the worst part of it, in every scene the hero is strained and hurted, you can only cry about his fate until a little before the end, they describe it as "A Painfully Romantic Comedy" on the poster, but they really should change it to "A Painfully Dramatic Comedy " because the romance is simply not present, only rejection and questions about relationship, overall the movie is not badly played or written, but they lied about it, and I don't like being lied to..
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spencer-w-hensley23 July 2017By the beginning of the 1990's Jeff Daniels was mostly known as a leading man in indie comedies like Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild", or he had supporting roles in mainstream dramas like the Oscar- winning "Terms of Endearment." His only real mainstream leading performance came in 1990's Arachnophobia, in which his performance there didn't get the recognition it deserved, as more attention went to John Goodman's role as well as the story and special effects. He was still a few years shy of his roles in Speed and Dumb and Dumber, both released in 1994, that would turn him into a household-name character actor. In between all of those films was this little, hidden, 1990 flick, which got no real critical reviews or audience recognition upon release and mostly remains unknown by the public today. Having enjoyed Daniels other aforementioned roles, I was curious to see if this was a hidden gem, or a piece of trash that should remain in obscurity. Well it's not quite a gem, the story is pretty familiar, and it certainly isn't worth the obscurity status it has received since its release. There are some very good performances here from Daniels and John Mahoney from Fraiser and Cloris Leachman from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
You have seen this story before in many other movies and sitcoms. Daniels plays a playboy-ish New York City insurance salesman who finalizes his divorce with his ex-wife played by Cynthia Sikes. He bought a country house in Pennsylvania for he and his wife and children to live in, but the wife claimed it after the divorce. The ex-wife and children are evacuated from their home as repairs have to be done for six weeks, so they all move in with Daniels' parents played by Mahoney and Leachman. Amidst all of this Daniels sister is getting married, and knowing his ex-wife will be in attendance at the wedding, he initially declines his wedding invitation until his boss convinces him to do otherwise. So Daniels' goes to spend the weekend with his profane, alcoholic father, a mechanic, and his sweet-natured housewife mother. Along the way he attempts to seduce a young, attractive woman whom he almost hits with his car, who is married to an abrasive painter until he finds out that this woman is a bridesmaid in his sister's wedding. Will he choose her, will he attempt to seduce his ex and win her back? What becomes of the rest of his family? The rest of the movie focuses all on those details.
Daniels manages to squeeze in a few laughs from his dialogue and delivery, but where his performance really scores high is in his more poignant moments. He brings a lot of be-livability into his role and we sympathize with him, while also realizing he is a man with a lot of weight on his shoulder because of his past mistakes and wants a second chance to make things right. Mahoney gets the biggest laughs in the movie. His role here is far different from Martin Crane. He is the dad who is like-ably goofy, yet an embarrassment to his family at the same time. Leachman is sadly given very little to do and her role could have really been expanded.
Burt Bacharach's score also gives the movie merit and the score is very pleasant and captures the plot very well. The director is Bud Yorkin who redeems himself here after directing the ill-fated Arthur 2: On the Rocks a few years earlier. The film also has nice locations. It has a bit of a Frank Capra like quality from It's a Wonderful Life in capturing the small-town life.
This is not an outstanding movie by any means. It's not an underrated gem that many will claim as a forgotten masterpiece all these years later, but it is a heartfelt, sincere comedy-drama in spite of its routine story and it has good performances, music, direction and writing for it to be worth a look for sure.
On a side note: I was disappointed to see that the song "Love Hurts" by Nazareth didn't get played at all during the film. I kept expecting it but it didn't turn up. They should have included it at some point during the film. -
This is quite the period piece - Jeff Daniels plays the "hero" role and he is an incredible a**hole - he jumps every woman he crosses paths with, mostly married - altho he has two kids he has neglected per a divorce in process - and it's all OK because the editor had overlaid (no pun intended) all his dalliances with cute-sey 1980's style romantic music.
And Daniels exacerbates the effect by, for some reason, choosing to "act" the part by constantly erupting into screaming fits at the top of his voice like a spoiled 13 year old in every situation in which the character is slotted to express frustration at his existential dilemmas.
John Mahoney plays the Jeff Daniel's character's lout of drunken father - but he's oh so witty, so that that's OK too. And he does a lot of excessive cursing - Mahoney's facile analog to Daniels' screaming fits - and is the best arm-wrestler at the local prototypically small town, oh so friendly & wholesome, local drunks' bar/poolhall and has a vintage Cadillac in his garage - oh wow, emotionally abusive to wife (played by Cloris Leachman who gives the only noteworthy performance in this debacle), but has vintage car, it's all OK then.
Worst part is there is then a "mentoring" scene at the local bar where father and grandfather drunkenly encourage teenage grandson to follow in their paths. It's quite sickening to think the writers and director thought this was the comical scene.
Of course the other supporting cast married guys who are faithful to their marriages are chumps or orgres.
Really don't know what the value schema of this thing is - but it's dated and pretty repulsive by any normal measure.
Oh well. -
przgzr27 November 2006Jeff Daniels is one of my favorite actors. Reason good enough to watch the movie that otherwise didn't seem to promise much.
Daniels plays Paul, going through a divorce after his family left him a year ago. Trying to stay in the saddle and keep the pieces of his life together he enjoys single life as much as he can, but it's not easy after divorce papers come and this life chapter approaches its end. However, we will find out that he led similar life during marriage years, and that was the main reason his wife Nancy, though still loving him, took the children and returned to her home town.
Daniels is always Daniels. He is not Johnny Depp, who gives a new, different performance each time he stands in front of camera, acting new way, looking new way, being someone new. No, Daniels can't do it. He isn't a de Niro hero, and not a Hoffmann loser who can both now and then successfully turn to be opposite. He is average, ordinary man we see every day on the street, in post office, train or on stairs we go down from our own flat. So it all depends on the writer who must imagine a new story for this character, and it has to be an everyday story that Daniels can fit in. But if the story is good, he can return the favor of getting the role by playing it brilliant. Yes, he had his character on the top in "Purple Rose of Cairo", and the one on the bottom in "Dumb and Dumber", but he always returned to that simple face we even see in our bathroom mirror (if we have just a little luck in our lives). Maybe more than ever he is like us, he makes mistakes one after another, sometimes careless, sometimes ruthless... just like we do.
And here we have a perfect ordinary story about everyday people, as if they came from any early afternoon TV movie with a little Oprah dressing. So you can watch with one eye closed, expecting endless clichés and probably a instant-sugared happy ending with screaming moral message. And you'll be wrong!
First you see Daniels making love to a woman, things look nice until we find he doesn't know her name and her husband is just returning home before he was expected. We see man talking to his neighbors while Daniels runs away in hurry. So, we met five people in first two minutes. And four of them we'll never see again.
In the same style we'll be introduced to few dozen characters and we have to concentrate who they are, because we can never be sure if they'll appear behind the corner, few days later or never again. This is a structure of real life, we meet many people, but their importance varies from being our daily environment, even our best friends, to someone we don't remember as soon as we turn our head the other side. Yet, though Paul is main character, it is not a movie that follows its star minute after minute; we jump from New York to Pennsylvania and see his family and their problems. Most of the characters will finally meet together, have some deeper or, more often, superficial influences one on another, and the story gets its shape in second half. People who kept using only half of one eye either gave up of or fell asleep. Those who weren't afraid to follow this Altman-like collection of people and destinies are now awarded.
And while American TV movies and Oprah stereotypes dangerously spread their wings above this little Pennsylvania town, don't overlook how the plot develops. Paul and his wife can't live together, but don't hate each other (as it's usual); yet they are almost unable to communicate. Children are with their mother, they seem to hate father (mother had a whole year to make them do it), especially the daughter. But we will learn that she misses New York, and blames father more because she had to leave than for bad family relations he had caused. At the end she leaves her mother and returns to live with Paul. (Finally we find a father-daughter relation free of abuse and hints of incest.) Seeing compromises other people have to make even Paul an his ex-wife reconsider their future, and though they stay apart their relation stays open as well as the movie ending. No Hollywoodish forced happy-end, and no feminist pamphlet. Thank God and Yorkin! Except director's excellent work, we can also enjoy some great supporting roles (Mahoney, Wright, Griffin...), while some stay pale. Bacharach made an unexpected retiring score, with not a single song Dionne Warwick could sing in or after the movie. But after all, it all depends on two things: if you like ordinary stories made just a bit differently, and more than that, if you like Jeff Daniels. -
rsoonsa4 December 2003This is an excellent film in every manner with the impulse behind its artistic success being the script by Ron Nyswaner, wry, witty and moving, each in its turn, detailed when it needs to be, and only suggestive, when that is appropriate. Varying concepts of what a person's home is and what it should be molds this comedic drama, the final directoral essay by Bud Yorkin, and unjustly overlooked or carelessly reviewed. Jeff Daniels portrays Paul Weaver, freshly divorced but not having altered his causative rakish ways, obligated to sojourn at the home of his parents for the wedding of his sister (Amy Wright), an awkward circumstance as his former wife (Cynthia Sikes) and two children are temporarily living there due to plumbing troubles in their own house. Paul is eager to become closer to his estranged children, but his daughter Sarah (Mary Griffin) has toted an abundance of resentment with her and is puzzled by the obviously ongoing mutual attraction between her parents. During a hectic nuptial weekend, Paul finds an available exchange of ardour with a bridesmaid (Judith Ivey) and this, along with his damaged association with his father (John Mahoney) supplies additional provender for Nyswaner's well-crafted script. Yorkin's fastidious direction allows for able ad libbing from Daniels and Wright, and is nicely supported by resourceful camerawork from Adam Greenberg who employs classic technique when isolating Weaver within a disquieted environment, by superb editing from John Horger, and by faultless sets and costumes from Leslie Rollins and Elizabeth McBride, respectively. In the last analysis, the film fares well because of attention to detail, originating largely from the writing of Nyswaner who strongly evokes small-city working-class Pennsylvania (although primarily shot near Dallas-Fort Worth) with each scene neatly sculpted and generally avoiding the cliched, helped by strong acting through the final scene, remarkable itself for its insouciant sense of actuality.
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dasilentpardner-650377 March 2024Jeff Daniel's stars in 'Love Hurts' as a man who engages in empty womanizing after experiencing the pain of divorce and losing his kids. His ex and kids have moved to a farmhouse in Pennsylvania near his parents and, in the meanwhile, Daniels tries to heal his hurt with work, cigarettes, liquor and sex.
Then he's asked to attend his sister's wedding in his Pennsylvania hometown (his ex and kids will be there) and we can clearly see some life lessons on the horizon. Weddings are often ripe for human behavior ('Lovers and Other Strangers,' Altman's 'A Wedding' are two good examples) and here is not different. The screenwriter has a good ear for brisk diaolgue that sounds like real people are speaking it. Bud Yorkin directs with a sure hand and makes all the scenes interesting.
But it is the acting by the principles that raises the film up. Jeff Daniels has often given excellent performance that fly under the radar ('Purple Rose of Cauro,' 'Marie,' 'Something Wild'), but here he does something very special : he humanized an average shlub who is fallible and even sometimes a jerk. John Mahoney and Cloris Leachman seemingly effortlessly invest their roles as his parents with humanity and compassion. And Amy Wright (who we never got enough of) brightens the film as the awkward and unsure sister.
It's a quiet film, made of little moments. No CGI here. Just humans grappling with life in a sometimes humorous and altogether honest way. Burt Bacharach lends a nice if somewhat repetitive score. An underrated gem of a film and a certain must for Jeff Daniels' fans. Don't listen to the naysayers.