Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Friday’s openings redux: Love strikes the long-married

Dan Webster

Looks as if at least one film is being added to the Friday movie openings menu. It should appeal to the art crowd:

"The Lovers": Debra Winger and Tracy Letts play a disaffected couple who step away from their respective affairs to once again enjoy a passionate tussle. Does Letts look like an officer and a gentleman?

Following are some critical comments:

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "It's the kind of thinking person's relationship comedy that you don't exactly laugh at but admire for its brutal honesty."

Moira MacDonald, Sattle Times: "Letts has some fine moments, but it's Winger who really brings the color to this movie, creating a woman filled with disappointment and passion and wit, taking a small-scale comedy of manners to a darker, richer place."

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: "(Director Azazel) Jacobs lets casually observed details and offhand humor advance the story. There are no grand pronouncements in The Lovers, which smartly communicates its ideas about relationships during its long stretches of silence."

And just for contrast:

Richard Brody, The New Yorker: "The movie exhausts itself in its conception and sits inert on the screen like an undigested mass of script pages."