Micki & Maude
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Movie Reviews of Micki & Maude
Movie Review: The key to the whole thing is Dudley Moore's absolutely and unquestioned sincerity.
Summary: 5 Stars
He loves both women. He would do anything to avoid hurting either woman. He wants to do the right thing but, more than that, he wants to do the kind thing. And that is how he ends up in a maternity ward with two wives who are both presenting him with baby children. If it were not for those good qualities in Moore's character, qualities this movie goes to great lengths to establish, MICKI + MAUDE would run the risk of turning into tasteless and even cruel slapstick. After all, these are serious matters we're talking about. But the triumph of the movie is that it identifies so closely with Moore's desperation and his essentially sincere motivation that we understand the lengths to which he is driven. That makes the movie's inevitable climax even funnier.
As the movie opens, Moore is happily married to an assistant district attorney (Ann Reinking) who has no desire to have children. Children are, however, the only thing in life that Moore himself desires; apart from that one void, his life is full and happy. He works as a reporter for one of those TV magazine shows where weird people talk earnestly about their constitutional rights to be weird: For example, nudists defend their right to bear arms. Then he meets a special person, a cello player (Amy Irving) who has stepped in at the last moment to play a big concert. She thinks he has beautiful eyes, he smiles, it's love, and within a few weeks Moore and Irving are talking about how they'd like to have kids. Then Irving gets pregnant. Moore decides to do the only right thing, and divorce the wife he loves to marry the pregnant girlfriend that he also loves. But then his wife announces that she's pregnant, and Moore turns, in this crisis of conscience, to his best friend, a TV producer wonderfully played by Richard Mulligan. There is obviously only one thing he can do: become a bigamist.
MICKI + MAUDE was directed by Blake Edwards, who also directed Moore in 10, and who knows how to build a slapstick climax by one subtle development after another. There is, for example, the fact that Irving's father happens to be a professional wrestler, with a lot of friends who are even taller and meaner than he is. There is the problem that Moore's original in-laws happen to pass the church where he is having his second wedding. Edwards has a way of applying absolute logic to insane situations, so we learn, for example, that after Moore tells one wife he works days and the other one he works nights, his schedule works out in such a way that he begins to get too much sleep.
Dudley Moore is developing into one of the great movie comedians of his generation. MICKI + MAUDE goes on the list with 10 and ARTHUR as screwball classics. Moore has another side as an actor, a sweeter, more serious side, that shows up in good movies like ROMANTIC COMEDY and bad ones like SIX WEEKS, but it's when he's in a screwball comedy, doing his specialty of absolutely sincere desperation, that he reaches genius. For example: The last twenty minutes of MICKI + MAUDE, as the two pregnant women move inexorably forward on their collision course, represents a kind of filmmaking that is as hard to do as anything you'll ever see on a screen. The timing has to be flawless. So does the logic: One loose end, and the inevitability of a slapstick situation is undermined. Edwards and Moore are working at the top of their forms here, and the result is a pure, classic slapstick that makes MICKI + MAUDE a real treasure.
Movie Review: Rooting for the Villain
Summary: 5 Stars
Dudley Moore is the villain in this one but it is hard not to root for him. He plays the supportive husband of Ann Reinking.
All he wants to do is be a father but his wife is busy working on a political campaign. She promises they will settle down when it is over. When it ends, she is instead rewarded with a judgeship in another city which she has to take. That leaves Dudley back home and lonely, mourning for the kids he is sure he will never have.
That's when he meets Amy Irving. She is a cellist he interviews and they share some type of spark with each other right away. He is not the type to be an adulterer but the situation gets the best of him because he feels abandoned by his own wife. He and Amy fall in love and he decides to get a divorce from Ann so he can settle down with Amy and have kids.
If it were that simple, though, there would not really be a movie here. Just as he gets ready to tell Ann the news, she tells him that she is pregnant from their last conjugal visit. Amy turns up pregnant at the same time. Since he really loves them both, he cannot bring himself to divorce Ann nor can he stop himself from marrying Amy. Neither knows about the other and it is slapstick as he tries to manage his life to keep both of his secrets. Needless to say, the world conspires against him.
When both women head into labor at the same time, the secret comes out with disastrous consequences for the guy who only ever wanted to be a dad.
This one is comedy throughout.
Movie Review: "Micki and Maude" is an unconventional comedy that works extremely well
Summary: 5 Stars
AUTHOR"S NOTE: Some spoilers appear in the following review.
REVIEW
"Micki and Maude" uses what is an unpalatable subject for a lot of people, and tells a story of heart, wit, and humane sensibilities. It is a very good mature comedy from director Blake Edwards which stars Dudley Moore, Ann Reinking, and Amy Irving.
Mr. Moore is Rob Salenger, a newsman happily married to wife Micki who ends up falling in love with an attractive cellist named Maude Guillory. He never falls out of love with Micki, but as he tells his best friend Leo,..."I don't want to divorce Micki!! I just want to marry Maude!!!" He does marry Maude, with results on his very busy home life both humorous and realistically disastrous.
The movie's real thematic triumph is in exploring the unpredictability of love in a world that wants to define everything, and especially married life, as inherently predictable. Dudley Moore gives an awesomely layered dry comic performance as Rob, with equally fine support from Ann Reinking as Micki and Amy Irving as Maude.
Also featuring Lu Leonard, Wallace Shawn and an unlikely cameo appearance from the late wrestler known as Andre The Giant, "Micki and Maude" is a heartfelt, intelligent success.
Movie Review: A bitter-sweet movie with tears slipping in amongst the laughter
Summary: 5 Stars
Rob Salinger is a man with a terrible problem - when his paramour, Maude, turns up pregnant, he decides to do the honorable thing and divorce his wife and marry her. But, before he can tell her about his affair, Micki floors him by telling him that she is pregnant as well! Rob doesn't want to hurt either Micki or Maude, so takes what he considers the path of least resistance, and he bigamously marries Maude! The situation turns into a comedy of errors as Rob tries to balance two marriages, and inevitable it all comes crashing down.
It's hard to describe this movie. On one hand it is a very funny movie, one that keeps you laughing almost all the way through. On the other hand, it is not really disrespectful of the subject of bigamy. You know Rob is going to get his comeuppance at some point, but you find yourself loving him in spite of what he did. Truly this is a bitter-sweet movie with tears slipping in amongst the laughter.
This is a thoughtful and yet very entertaining movie.
(Review of Her Micki and Maude starring Dudley Moore)
Movie Review: A bittersweet story of bigamy
Summary: 5 Stars
This film released in late 1984,is about a married man named Rob Salinger(the late Dudley Moore) who secretly marries another woman during his current marriage. Rob is a newspaper editor married to Micheline "Micki" Salinger(Ann Reinking),a judge. While secretly romancing Maude(Amy Irving),he proposes to her(Maude). Rob has babies by both women and in one of the last scenes,they(the women) both meet and converse about their respective simultaneous marriages. But Rob keeps both wives. In the real world,bigamy is undoubtedly illegal. Director Blake Edwards' previous film credits include BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and THE PINK PANTHER. Subsequently,he directed the late John Ritter in 1989's SKIN DEEP.
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