"Dorfman in Love" seems to have been a lost movie. In the golden age of IMDb - when the message boards were still available - I remember people asking where and when and how they could watch it.
Naturally, this made us all interested to see it. We shouldn't have bothered.
It's not just that every character in the movie is one-dimensional and painted in broad brush strokes with character arcs you can see coming from the first time they are on screen. It's also the fact that the movie totally runs out of steam toward the end and becomes hopelessly boring.
The main character is an over-worked accountant who looks after her widower dad and is overworked by her spoilt brother. She is in love with the studly, jet-setting reporter she works with, but he seems to mostly use her (notice a theme?) for pep talks when he feels low. She meets a handsome artist, but is unreceptive to him at first...
The conclusion is so forced it almost seems like a slap in the face. The stage is set for our protagonist to choose between her photographer or the artist next door. This would be a difficult decision, if the photographer didn't start acting like a jerk out of nowhere at the zero hour, making it not really a decision at all.
And then we have the relationship between father and daughter. Elliott Gould spouts Yiddish constantly throughout this movie. He doesn't speak without using terms like "tauches", "fagela", "mensch". Were they trying to make sure it would get a spot in Jewish film festivals? Anyway, he experiences a similarly unbelievable arc when he realises, out of nowhere, he has spoilt his son and neglected his daughter.
I say these changes are "out of nowhere", which they are if you try to take the movie seriously as something that is trying to be realistic. In fact, you can see them all coming simply because you are so well-versed in clichés. "Dorfman in Love" is one of those movies that relies on our familiarity with the clichés it uses to tell its story. Take those clichés away, it would be a dead zone. You'd be angry, instead of bored and irritated.
Naturally, this made us all interested to see it. We shouldn't have bothered.
It's not just that every character in the movie is one-dimensional and painted in broad brush strokes with character arcs you can see coming from the first time they are on screen. It's also the fact that the movie totally runs out of steam toward the end and becomes hopelessly boring.
The main character is an over-worked accountant who looks after her widower dad and is overworked by her spoilt brother. She is in love with the studly, jet-setting reporter she works with, but he seems to mostly use her (notice a theme?) for pep talks when he feels low. She meets a handsome artist, but is unreceptive to him at first...
The conclusion is so forced it almost seems like a slap in the face. The stage is set for our protagonist to choose between her photographer or the artist next door. This would be a difficult decision, if the photographer didn't start acting like a jerk out of nowhere at the zero hour, making it not really a decision at all.
And then we have the relationship between father and daughter. Elliott Gould spouts Yiddish constantly throughout this movie. He doesn't speak without using terms like "tauches", "fagela", "mensch". Were they trying to make sure it would get a spot in Jewish film festivals? Anyway, he experiences a similarly unbelievable arc when he realises, out of nowhere, he has spoilt his son and neglected his daughter.
I say these changes are "out of nowhere", which they are if you try to take the movie seriously as something that is trying to be realistic. In fact, you can see them all coming simply because you are so well-versed in clichés. "Dorfman in Love" is one of those movies that relies on our familiarity with the clichés it uses to tell its story. Take those clichés away, it would be a dead zone. You'd be angry, instead of bored and irritated.