![]() So "The Sterile Cuckoo" is not as good as it should have been because it lacks consistency of tone. Pakula has a good story, and tells it, and then gums it up with the unnecessary scenes he probably felt obligated to include. They seriously interfere with the rhythm of the movie, and they present Pookie and Jerry as conventional lovers - something that is not established in any of the movie's dramatic scenes. "Sterile Cuckoo" has not one, nor even two, but no less than three of these insufferable scenes. Every other movie sticks in one of those syrupy Salem ads with the lovers floating over the countryside with the hit single on the sound track. As I observe here at least twice a month, the Semi-Obligatory Lyrical Interlude has had it as a useful movie device. We squirm in our seats as the Sandpipers sing "Come Saturday Morning" until you wonder if there aren't any other days in the week. When he deliberately tries to be contemporary. Where he goes wrong is when he tries to give "The Sterile Cuckoo" the look of a conventional love movie. Pakula has a real feel for this relationship and for these two people, and he tells their story well. In any event, all of these scenes and most of the movie are honest and pretty straight with us. It is damned good, as I've said, but I think they're overselling it. ![]() She works for the largest and most powerful agency in Hollywood, and they're spending a lot of money hailing it as great art. It is on a level, this year, with Cathy Burns' monolog in " Last Summer," and Shirley Knight's long phone call at the beginning of " The Rain People." It will probably win Miss Minnelli an Oscar. This scene is not quite the greatest piece of acting in the history of the movies (although Life magazine would have us believe so), but it is sensitive and good. And, of course, there's Miss Minnelli's justly celebrated telephone scene, during which she begs, pleads and cajoles Jerry in an attempt to salvage their relationship. A finely acted performance by Tim McIntire, as Jerry's roommate. There's a good scene in the fraternity house when Pookie gets drunk. There's a sad, funny scene in the motel room as Jerry mechanically undresses Pookie. He'll grow up into the kind of guy who claims he only works here. ![]() Jerry is offensively passive, lifeless, colorless, undistinguished. Pookie fastens herself to him for neurotic reasons of her own, but she chooses the wrong guy. He's the kind of kid who stays on campus over Easter vacation, claiming he has to study - and really does. ![]() Jerry (played by Wendell Burton) doesn't even care that much. But at least she cares enough to make an effort to reach someone else. Pookie is basically interested only in herself - boringly so, at times. Liza Minnelli plays Pookie as an appealing eccentric who gradually cracks up as her hang-ups surface. For maybe 80 per cent of the movie they're the only ones on screen. Pakula has chosen, deliberately I suppose, to isolate his kids from any 1969 concerns and show them completely in terms of each other. I suppose there are more Pookies and Jerrys in the freshman class, even today, than sexually and politically sophisticated types.ĭirector Alan J. They aren't of the current generation, but they're not really apart from it. When it comes time for them to consummate their affair, they do what any 1927 Scott Fitzgerald hero would do: Go to a crummy motel and rent a room. They wear college sweatshirts and their hair short. They go to aggressively typical colleges in upstate New York, where the biggest thing on campus is a fraternity beer party. They're awfully normal kids, at least in exterior ways. Both characters are presented as freshmen in college, having their first love affair.
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