Film Forum

U.S., 1984
Directed by Michael Roemer
Starring Brooke Adams, Trish Van Devere, Jon DeVries, Ari Meyers
New 35mm print. Approx 118 min.

Unsuccessfully trying to close old family wounds on a trip back to the Rhode Island home of her miserable childhood, a troubled Brooke Adams (DAYS OF HEAVEN, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) finds her new friendship with neighbor Trish Van Devere has her stuck in another family drama. A continuation of writer/director Roemer’s earlier insights on fraught relationships (NOTHING BUT A MAN, THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY, etc), though considerably more pointed.

A FILM DESK RELEASE

Reviews

“One of the masters of American cinema. Don't miss this.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

"FANTASTIC, NOT TO MENTION FANTASTICAL...
The film's introductory breeziness belies a literary, cinematic complexity. Barbara Taylor Bradford clothes on a John Updike body, Ingmar Bergman by way
of Phil Donahue...what you’ll witness is an American movie executed with a French film’s interpersonal insouciance. "
– Wesley Morris, The New York Times
Read the full review

“Roemer is known for only two films, both masterpieces: Nothing But a Man (1964) and The Plot Against Harry (1971)... The rediscovery of a third Roemer feature as good as the others is a cause for celebration, and something of a miracle.”
– A.S. Hamrah, Screen Slate

“With Brooke Adams in fine form as the young woman fleeing an unhappy marriage and taking refuge with a family in a more drastic state of disintegration than her own, this out-and-out melodrama sees her confronting as heavy a mix of cruelty, confusion and incipient insanity as Barbara Stanwyck ever had to face in the ’50s. It impresses due to a careful script and superb naturalistic performances.”
— Geoff Andrew, Time Out