About Last Night...

This picture was criticized as being a watered-down version of the David Mamet play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.” Having never seen the play, I cannot comment on that. Taken on its own merits, however, I found the picture to be quite good, a telling depiction of the search for love in these oh-so-modern times. There are shades of the much-maligned “St. Elmo’s Fire” here (not the least of which is that the two stars--Rob Lowe and Demi Moone--both appeared in that picture) but I found this truer and more engaging. Perhaps it cuts a bit close to home.

Two people who are fundamentally good and really do care about each other tear at each other with silence and recrimination, constantly doubting who they are, who the other is, and what they want from the relationship. Talk about movies about lack of communication. “Quest For Fire” has nothing on this, and this is far more tragic, because lack of communication when none is possible is not half so bad as lack of communication when it is poesible, if only the parties could break through and make the effort.

The two stars--both of whom, incidentally, are far more attractive than any person has the right to be--turn in nice performances as the young adults (and I use that phrase advisedly) trying to come to grips with themselves and each other. They are baffled, bewildered, groping about for something they cannot quite identify. The picture is by turns funny and touching, and the pain--for a mainstream picture--is rather starkly and realistically etched. It brings home how much you can hurt someone when you really do care about him or her. "I guess I thought it would be different" is the theme, and it's true; neither of them has the slightest idea what it is all about, and learning that is a difficult process. Some never succeed.

There is very nice supporting work by Elizabeth Perkins and James Belushi as the two lovers' best friends. Belushi has the best lines, and he is a natural in front of the camera; he may prove to be a comic force, but he is also effective in the rare moments when his character turns serious and heartfelt. One nice shot: Belushi’s reaction when Lowe runs into the rainy night after Moore. Belushi’s face is sorrowful and resigned, that of a teacher whose prize pupil has just gone sadly and irrevocably astray. For all the Yuppie trappings, I thought the picture was an evocative portrait of two people struggling to connect (do I paraphrase Forster?) in a time when myriad forces conspire against just that goal. Not just a time of the century, either, but a time of life. It’s summed up for me at the end, when it looks like the two lovers are going to get back together (though it is a virtue of the picture that this is by no means certain, and you are left wondering whether they will make it in the long run) and Demi Moore turns to Rob Lowe as she is walking away. “Why,” she says. “Why are we doing this?” Why indeed.