* * *
Two yuppies find romance in mid-’80s Chicago.
Starring Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, James Belushi, Elizabeth Perkins
Written by Tim Kazurinsky, Denise DeClue
Produced by Jason Brett, Stuart Oken
Duration 113 minutes
I mean, honestly. Would you fancy trying to sell something called Sexual Perversity in Chicago to a mainstream cinema audience? No, I didn’t think so.
TriStar Pictures weren’t up to the task either, and they probably had Harvard graduates with master’s degrees in marketing and everything. Thus, David Mamet’s play joined a list of adapted works that were released with a different title. It’s a grand tradition that includes BABE (The Sheep-pig), FIELD OF DREAMS (Shoeless Joe), GOODFELLAS (Wise Guy), STAND BY ME (The Body) and BLADE RUNNER (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?).
Now, Mamet wasn’t
involved in the production of ABOUT LAST NIGHT, although the frank,
foul-mouthed pitter-patter dialogue certainly sounds like your man, especially
the younger Belushi brother's explicit monologue about his own 'last night'
that he unleashes towards a rapt Rob Lowe (who, as a notorious '80s sleaze
hound, was probably taking notes).
I've never seen the play, but I'm sure it wasn’t totally discarded in the reimagining. So this gives me enough of an excuse to quote from Mamet’s excellent nonfiction book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business, within which the Chicago-native gives the following writing advice:
The audience will undergo only the journey that the hero undergoes… Similarly, the audience will not suffer, wonder, discover, or rejoice to any extent greater than that to which the writer has been subjected. To suggest that the writer can, through exercise of craft, evade or avoid the struggle of creation is an error congruent with confounding the study of theology with prayer.
In other words, you have to have gone through what your characters go through, or at least your protagonist. Not necessarily literally, but definitely on an emotional level – clearly not everyone has to be Paul Schrader, depressed and living out of his car while scribbling down TAXI DRIVER.
In the case of ABOUT LAST NIGHT, however, there’s not much chance that Mamet, either of the two credited screenwriters or the viewer themselves haven't been through at least some of what our heroes face, even if only vicariously. It’s a pretty by-the-numbers account of well-worn romantic comedy/drama tropes, uncovering little that won’t be familiar from either one's own life or from other movies.
To wit:
– An act one, getting-to-know-each-other montage, set to a song that seems to be
called ‘So Far So Good’ and contains the lyrics "We've no way of knowing/How
far this is going/If this isn't love/Then it's in the neighbourhood".
– The
male and female pals separately discuss the politics of men telephoning women: frequency, proximity to how recently
the lovers last saw each other, etc.
– Moore
turns up at Lowe's door and then insists that she's not coming in; smash cut
to them having sex in an empty bathtub with the built-in shower on full blast.
– A
moving-in-together sequence that features much dropping of boxes and is set to another cheesy song that opines, "And it feels like a home/Though we've just begun/Ain’t it
lucky/That we lucked into one another?"
– When Lowe's boss makes an unreasonable demand of him, he replies, "Fuck you!", to
which his employer responds, "Fuck me? Fuck you!"
– "I love you" changes everything and is uttered at the exact halfway point,
dividing the movie neatly into a ‘will this get serious?’ half followed by a ‘will they
go the distance?’ one.
– That
second half is full of suspicion and arguments and is waaaaay less fun.
There were few stars more attractive than post-BLAME IT ON RIO, pre-STRIPTEASE Demi Moore, and here her combustive mixture of endearing cuteness and gravel-voiced derision make up for Lowe's blandness – an actor who really only found his voice post-Brat Pack, a couple of seasons into TV's The West Wing. Belushi is billed as ‘James’ and not ‘Jim’, which usually indicates a dramatic role, but here he’s mostly slobbish comic relief and equips himself ably; ditto an hilarious Elizabeth Perkins, who really deserves to be known for more than playing Wilma Flintstone and for seducing a 12-year-old boy in BIG.
So all in all, ABOUT LAST NIGHT isn't terrible. But in terms of films based on David Mamet plays, it's certainly no GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS – which I'm surprised upon adapting no one wanted to rename REAL ESTATE WARS or FIVE ANGRY MEN.
Final thought: the title of this movie is uttered out loud by the characters several times, should you be after a new drinking game.
Three stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? Not really, as we’re talking about a love
affair and not a one-night stand. But I guess it’s catchier than ABOUT ALL THOSE
PREVIOUS NIGHTS WE’VE SPENT TOGETHER DURING WHICH SOME THINGS HAPPENED …
What would a movie called ABOUT
FIRST NIGHT be about? That would be the ideal title for a behind-the-scenes
DVD feature on the Sean Connery/Richard Gere 1995 Arthurian romp FIRST KNIGHT.
Previously: THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
Next time: THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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