A Little Romance
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.49 You Save: $10.49 (70%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.49 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of A Little Romance
Movie Review: A Screen Legend, a Star's Debut, and Europe!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think every great director makes at least one light-hearted 'fun' film set in a romantic, far-away location; Hitchcock extolled the Riviera's virtues in "To Catch a Thief", Ford created a fantasy isle using Kaua'i in "Donovan's Reef", Hawks, in "Hatari", offered Tanganyika as a safari-lover's dream...and George Roy Hill displays an enchanting vision of 1970's Paris, Verona, and Venice, in "A Little Romance".
While the story is certainly breezy and light (a teenaged French boy and American girl, aided by an aging, endearing French pickpocket, run away from their Parisian homes to take a romantic pledge in Venice), the presence of Laurence Olivier as the elderly crook gives the character a charm few actors could match. Equally impressive is 14-year-old Diane Lane, making her film debut; radiantly beautiful (Olivier called her a "young Grace Kelly"), Lane, under Hill's direction, eschews the 'typical' teenager mannerisms, displaying the warmth and maturity that has been her trademark for 30 years. Her French boyfriend, portrayed by 15-year-old Thelonious Bernard (in his debut, as well), is also terrific, as a quick-thinking fan of American cinema. It's a shame he only made one other feature, before leaving acting to become a dentist.
The story shines with wonderful secondary characters and droll inside jokes. Hill's choice of Sally Kellerman and Arthur Hill as Lane's parents is inspired; Kellerman's screen persona as a self-centered flake, and Hill's, as a warm paternal figure, were so well-established that the director could devote more screen time developing other characters, from David Dukes as a preening young film director (channeling Bogdanovich, Rydell, and Richard Donner), to grizzled Broderick Crawford, portraying himself as a hard-drinking skirt-chaser who can't remember his co-stars from the past. Hill even slides in clips from his greatest successes, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting" (which puts Lane and Bernard to sleep!)
"A Little Romance" is timeless fun, at a wonderful price, and it's a film you can enjoy, again and again!
Movie Review: Unexpectedly delightful
Summary: 5 Stars
A Little Romance is surprisingly charming considering it has all the ingredients for saccharine overload: two child geniuses, Thelonius Bernard's French taxi driver's son and Diane Lane's American student in Paris decide to run off to Venice to kiss under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset so that they'll love each other forever, aided and abetted by Laurence Olivier's former diplomat, eternal romantic and Maurice Chevalier impersonator. But hold back the vomit - against all the odds it actually works delightfully. The kids are likeable and believable and even Laurence Olivier's hamming is kept under control (though it's Arthur Hill who gives the most likeable performance as Lane's latest stepfather) while the script is knowing without giving in to cynicism ("If I could pick horses I wouldn't need to pick pockets!").
There's some broader comedy on the sidelines as Lane's mother openly flirts with wunderkind movie director George Di Marco (David Dukes) who who seems to be a composite movie brat combining trace elements of De Palma, Friedkin and the much-parodied Peter Bogdanovich, but it thankfully never assumes centre stage. However, injokes at director George Roy Hill's expense do abound - the film begins with the jump from Butch Cassidy dubbed in French and later the two young lovers fall asleep during a screening of The Sting dubbed into Italian. (It's also interesting to note how badly the dialogue gets mangled in the foreign dubs: Rooster Cogburn's "Fill your hands, you son of a b****" becomes "You monkey. I suggest you defend yourself!", which makes you wonder how Daniel managed to learn such good English from watching American films). The only slightly sour note is that genuinely talented composer Georges Delerue won the film's only Oscar for reorchestrating the second movement from Vivaldi Concerto for Lute in D as the main theme (presumably the Academy members thought he wrote it himself), but regardless of the score's provenance it works perfectly for the film and the Verona and Venice locations.
Movie Review: Endearing tale of young love... Excellent DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
This endearing tale of young love will bring smiles and tears to both young and old alike. It features two bright, innocent 13 year olds, an American girl and a French boy who fall in love. When her mother disapproves, the pair run off with the aid of an elderly gentleman who take them across Europe for their romantic tryst under the Bridge of Sighs in the ancient city of Venice. Along the way we get to take in the sights of Paris and Verona before finally ending in the magnificient Piazza San Marco and on the gondolas plying the canals of the old city. It features a very young Diane Lane in her screen debut at age 13 and the venerable Lord Laurence Olivier who famously hailed his young costar as "the next Grace Kelly".
The lovely score by George Delerue won an Academy Award but much of the most memorable music within the movie is actually by Antonio Vivaldi. The loveliest piece, titled "Love's Not Like That", which is used throughout the movie to accompany the young lovers is actually the Largo from Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D, RV 93.
This 2005 release is the same DVD released in January 2003. The film has been beautifully transferred in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (anamorphic), not 1.85:1 as stated at Amazon's website. Although there are occasional nicks on the print as befits its vintage (1979), it is a generally good and clean transfer with bright, natural colors and crisp images. Sound is a very basic 2.0 mono which although perfectly serviceable does not do true justice to the nuances of the lovely baroque music. Extras are pretty limited. There is an enagaging 7 minute look-back by Diane Lane on the making of the film and her reminiscences of her costars, especially of Lord Larry. There is a single theatrical trailer for the movie (also anamorphic). The rest of the extras consists of Production Notes, awards garnered and a Poster gallery. Even without any extras, the main feature alone is worth the price of the DVD, an unjustly neglected little masterpiece.
Movie Review: The Sweetest Movie You Will Ever See
Summary: 5 Stars
I fell in love with this movie when it first came out, and have followed Diane Lane's career as she grew up in the movie business ever since. (I noticed in Unfaithful that she runs the same way she did as a girl.) I've enjoyed having VHS and now DVD copies of it to share with my children as they grow up, and they have fallen in love with it, too. George Roy Hill makes it work on so many levels, esp. the use of music which he did so well in Butch Cassidy and The Sting. The little affecting parts are so much fun: Lauren's ditzy friend and Daniel's "man-of-the-world" Stetson-wearing friend, Lauren's stepfather (Arthur Hill) who understands Lauren better than her self-absorbed mother (Sally Kellerman), Daniel's American-cussing taxi-driving father, the escape via a bike race, and Daniel, the movie lover, having to remind a drunken Broderick Crawford (where did he come from?) of his previous movie roles.
At its heart, what makes A Little Romance work is that it isn't just a teenage love story, it's an adventure that reminds us of our lost youth and not just falling in love for the first time, but the risk-taking and impulsiveness of times gone by when we were young and didn't know any better. The great ending still makes me cry along with Lauren, Daniel and Olivier. BTW, the DVD has a great interview with a mature Diane Lane telling about working with Olivier. I can't recommend this movie more highly if you want to treat yourself.
Movie Review: A Sweet Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
With all its talent and its endearing story, it's startling this poignant George Roy Hill film from 1979 isn't more well-known, because it would certainly win over many viewers. Based on a novel by Patrick Cauvin, (who also wrote 1975's Blind Love), and starring Diane Lane in her first big screen role, Laurence Olivier in a rare comedic outing, and a talented young French actor named Thelonious Bernard, who made only two movies before leaving the business to become a dentist of all things, A Little Romance is a hidden cinematic gem. Telling the tale of Lauren King, a thirteen-year-old wealthy American girl living in Paris, and her boyfriend, Daniel, a local lad from the wrong side of the tracks, who upon learning that the American family is soon to be returning to the United States, run off together to Venice, with the aid of Olivier's aged con man character, in order to share a kiss at sunset under the renown Bridge of Sighs. (Those unacquainted with the legend of the bridge or the tradition of a kiss beneath the bridge will doubly enjoy finding out at the same time the young couple do.) With so many steamy movies out there offering sex in the place of romance, it's nice to see a well-made old fashioned story like this one that is sweet but not saccharine, nostalgic but not outdated, and above all touchingly charming start to finish.