peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 08 16 Tempest

Tempest (1982)

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More Cassavetes/Rowlands completism. Co-writer/director Paul Mazursky was notionally somewhat inspired by or recycled Shakespeare's play. (The other writer was Leon Capetanos.) In brief high-flying architect Cassavetes has a midlife crisis in NYC, leaving retired Broadway actress/wife Rowlands to his ominous casino-developer boss Vittorio Gassman so he can revisit his roots in Greece and ultimately a Greek island, taking their teenage daughter Molly Ringwald with him. By fantastical coincidence the eternally braless Susan Sarandon is walking her dog in some town there and finds him irresistible. As he's the centre of everyone's universe the others track him down, and the mandatory big sea storm leads to vacuous rapprochement. Billed as comedy but mostly snoozefest, it took me two sittings to get through. It was probably fun to make.

Vincent Canby at the time.