{"id":11385,"date":"2010-06-26T22:11:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T05:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11385"},"modified":"2025-09-25T22:29:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T05:29:52","slug":"old-boyfriends-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11385","title":{"rendered":"Old Boyfriends (1979)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;You can&#8217;t just pick these things up again like a book you never finished.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster-196x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-61189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster-196x300.png 196w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster-669x1024.png 669w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster-84x128.png 84w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster-176x270.png 176w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Old-Boyfriends-Poster.png 717w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA troubled psychologist (Talia Shire) hoping to understand herself better takes a road trip to reconnect with three of her former beaus &#8212; including a college boyfriend (Richard Jordan), a high school flame (John Belushi), and a childhood sweetheart.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Character Studies<\/li>\n<li>John Belushi Films<\/li>\n<li>Paul Schrader Films<\/li>\n<li>Road Trip<\/li>\n<li>Talia Shire Films<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nThe premise of this succinctly titled character study is compelling: who hasn&#8217;t fantasized at some point about revisiting one&#8217;s former lovers, and reassessing, in hindsight, what went wrong? Unfortunately, director Joan Tewkesbury &#8212; best known for writing Robert Altman&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=8558\"><em>Nashville<\/em> (1975)<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=8138\"><em>Thieves Like Us<\/em> (1974)<\/a> &#8212; fails to turn this intriguing narrative framework into a convincing drama. At the heart of the problem lies Shire&#8217;s performance, which is uneven and unfocused; sadly, we never grow to care about her character. Part of the issue also lies in Paul and Leonard Schrader&#8217;s screenplay: after an initial voice-over giving a cursory explanation of what Shire&#8217;s setting out to do and why, we&#8217;re plunged into her road trip without an opportunity to feel any investment in her or her dilemma. The surprisingly lame dialogue doesn&#8217;t help matters any either (Shire says to her womanizing ex-boyfriend Belushi &#8212; who now runs a formal wear company &#8212; &#8220;I always knew you&#8217;d get into women&#8217;s clothes &#8211; but this is ridiculous!&#8221; Ha.) Meanwhile, David Shire&#8217;s sumptuous but overused film score seems to belong to another movie entirely. Richard Jordan (playing Shire&#8217;s sympathetic almost-fiance from her college days) provides the film&#8217;s sole redeeming element, though his role is regrettably small, and his character&#8217;s actions don&#8217;t really ring all that true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note<\/strong>: Fans of John Belushi will certainly be interested to see his brief appearance here as a mega-louse; he acquits himself reasonably well. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Richard Jordan as Diane&#8217;s college flame<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/old-boyfriends-jordan.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/old-boyfriends-jordan.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11392\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo; feel free to skip this one. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0079660\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1979\/03\/22\/archives\/film-boyfriends-by-joan-tewkesbury.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/movies\/old-boyfriends\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t just pick these things up again like a book you never finished.&#8221; Synopsis: A troubled psychologist (Talia Shire) hoping to understand herself better takes a road trip to reconnect with three of her former beaus &#8212; including a college boyfriend (Richard Jordan), a high school flame (John Belushi), and a childhood sweetheart. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Character Studies John Belushi Films Paul Schrader Films Road Trip Talia Shire Films Review: The premise of this succinctly titled character&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11385\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99111,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11385\/revisions\/99111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}