Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977)

[beamish14]

Me, I think it's a merely good film. Roeg would have directed the hell out of it to be sure, and Bad Timing is roughly in the same ballpark as this. It's very icky all around in terms of its sexual politics, and it's clear that it was written and directed by a man who was much older than the generation he's depicting. That said, Keaton is excellent, Gere shows why he quickly became a star, and Tom Berenger is hot as hell.

As far as being a "true story," I'm sure the truth is stretched pretty thin. The source novel is based on a real case, but I think the author, Judith Rossner, was trying to write a Jacqueline Susann/Erica Jong-style sensational sexual revolution thrill ride, not gritty realism.

Apart from Keaton, I thought Tuesday Weld was the only one who gave a good performance. It took me a while to appreciate Gere as an actor. In his two early movies, which I consider masterpieces, he is well cast as a blank slate. In Days of Heaven, all the adult characters are enigmas, given (unreliable) interiority by Linda Manz's narration. In American Gigolo, he is all surface by design. Otherwise, he often resorted to sub-Brando theatrics, which never convinced me. It wasn't until Internal Affairs, in which he exudes a quiet malevolence, that he gave a performance that made me think he could actually act.

I love Gere’s early work in films like Report to the Commissioner, this, and Bloodbrothers. He made for a great NY hoodlum

[domino harvey]

He should have gotten nommed for Arbitrage, a film which feels more relevant than ever. But the fact he couldn’t even make it for Chicago shows the industry prob hates him

[TheTreeSong]

Certainly a film that I still go back and forth on. I now lean on the side of "saying the film punishes women who sleep around is a far too easy interpretation". Ultimately, the film appears to be saying that women will never be free until they're divorced from male rage/insecurity. Depressing message but can one say that this isn't true?

I agree that Brooks was still a baffling choice to adapt this, espeically since he's on record saying that he hated the book. How many people here have read the book it? Just curious. Ebert's review of the film is very good, pointing out the differences in Theresa in the film and novel. Essentially, Theresa is a hedonist in the film and a masochist in the book. I recall Theresa in the novel being very cold, contemptuous, and even bigoted. She actively dislikes/is jealous of her sister (the Tuesday Weld character) unlike the warmer interactions from the movie. The films definitely went out of its way to make her more palatable. I think there's a lot of leftover Annie Hall-isms in Keaton's performance so I'm not sure it was as much of a stretch as, say, Reds or Shoot the Moon.

But back to Brooks, I can't shake the feeling that he did the film only so he can do the last scene, which adds to the muddled tone of everything. It's certainly a marvel of style and brilliantly acted by Keaton and Berenger. I think, as has been stated before, that Keaton and Brooks are on two different wavelengths and are in two different movies. Campion's In the Cut is basically Goodbar from the female director it always should've been (though the ending is changed in that film from the source material). The dueling viewpoints in Goodbar still lead to a fascinatingly schizo film, if not a necessarily good one.

[beamish14]

He should have gotten nommed for Arbitrage, a film which feels more relevant than ever. But the fact he couldn’t even make it for Chicago shows the industry prob hates him

I LOVE Norman, which has an incredible performance from Richard Gere as well