Sally McClellan

Annoying, slow-moving, awkward conversations that go nowhere. This movie really needed sharp, driven dialogue and an elevated story. The improvisation doesn't cut it. None of the three divas are really likeable, although Bergen's performance is the most compelling. Weist's character only exists to force a confrontation between the other two, like, in the last 15 minutes of the movie. Have no idea what the director is trying to say with this movie. Too many big questions left completely unanswered -- like how, exactly, did Alice's book ruin Roberta's life? And how did Alice change over the decades of their friendship? What was she like before? And what was Alice writing at the end? All the interesting stuff is neglected. Maybe this was an extended commercial for the Queen Mary cruise line, and a cheap way to make a movie and a buck while getting the actresses' faces out there during the lack of movies over the past year? I'm sure glad I didn't pay to see this in a theatre.

Beautiful. Why have I never seen this before? A story of a night of liberty before four friends are shipped overseas, hoping to be stationed in Vietnam. One young man, River Phoenix, who initially seems completely unsympathetic, lets down his guard when he meets a young woman he has betrayed who confronts him on his behavior. They spend the night walking around San Francisco and end up in her narrow single bed in one of the most innocent and moving love scenes I've ever seen. She loves her music and her guitar and she introduces him to famous folk music of the time, even singing him a Malvina Reynolds song. They part in the morning, and don't meet up again until he returns stateside in his fatigues, walking through hippy-filled San Francisco streets until he finds her. The movie ends in their embrace. There is a small speech delivered by the Marine's buddy on their way to their deployment which encapsulates the whole psychology behind war -- it is simplistic and it feels tired and true.