Romancefest 2011: Barefoot in the Park

Watching BAREFOOT IN THE PARK is like a 2 hour hang out session with that couple no one can stand. You know, they’re just too happy, too good looking, too into each other. You suspect they might be lying but you can’t prove it because you never get to see them alone. They’re their own number 1 fans – so self-satisfied that they don’t really care if it comes at someone else’s expense. They’re the stars, everyone else is the audience, and that’s the way they like it.

So, I didn’t like it.

In this case, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda play the newlywed couple in question. Sounds good on paper, and they’re fine in the roles – Redford has kind of a thankless part as a total square, but does as well as he can with it and delivers his more sarcastic lines with easy flair, and Fonda is both hot enough and vivacious enough to more than fill the role of the sex crazed housewife.

The screenplay is by Neil Simon, based on his own stage play, but it doesn’t crackle the way movies like THE ODD COUPLE or THE GOODBYE GIRL do. There just seems to be something missing. The movie is light, but maybe it’s too light? The main characters aren’t that likable, but the movie isn’t about that. I think we’re basically supposed to like them, which is a bad sign. The movie isn’t self-aware. Maybe with a faster pace some of the recurring jokes, like the fact that every character has to enter the newlyweds’ apartment after climbing 5 flights of stairs, would be more funny.

The story has Redford and Fonda starting out as “just married” and then moving on to deal with a less than perfect apartment in Greenwich Village which eventually leads to their first real blow out fight. Again, there’s not much to it, and if you don’t like the central couple, you’re going to have a hard time enjoying the movie.

Still, Neil Simon does get one or two good back and forths in there between the main characters, and the mother in law (Mildred Natwick ) and bohemian neighor (Charles Boyer) characters are interesting, offbeat, sympathetic and fun.

Maybe the movie should have been about them.