Jeanskynebu
the audience applauded
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Catangro
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
moonspinner55
12-year-old Manhattan classmates, an intelligent boy and a girl from affluent backgrounds, must deal with their clucking, suspicious, embattled parents. The boy, new in school, is shuffled back and fourth between his bitterly-divorced mother and father, while the girl's parents are trying to conceal from her the fact they are all but officially separated. Faintly amusing comedy-drama wavers uncomfortably at times between satire and hard-shelled sentiment, with the portraits of the immature adults far too obvious. After 22 minutes of character introductions, I was still waiting for the movie to get started. The picture was lent some critical cache at the time because of Robert Altman's involvement as executive producer, though it was released four months after "A Little Romance" and may have confused moviegoers. These kids (Trini Alvarado and Jeremy Levy) are sexually curious, precocious and combative--no angels--and they provide the only interest in an otherwise parched scenario. ** from ****
SnoopyStyle
Franny Philips (Trini Alvarado) is a 12 year old from a well-off Upper East Side home. She's struggling to grow up with suspicions of her parents splitting up. She keeps track of her father Paul (John Lithgow) sneaking into the house in early mornings to pretend to sleep at home. Her parents are constantly fighting. New kid Jamie Harris (Jeremy Levy) is her best friend. His parents are divorced and he teaches her the ways of the broken home. His mother is new-agey while his father has a fast car and a trophy girlfriend.The normalization of divorce is still new at this point. Trini is amazing. It doesn't need so much of her parents when she's not in the scene. It's her story after all. The boy is good although he could be sweeter. The puppy love is cute. It's a good small movie of a certain time.
huh_oh_i_c
Okay, so the title is ... wrong. It's not about rich kids at all, this movie is about kids dealing with their parents' divorce. And, a little with budding love, age 12.Franny is a 12 year old girl, an only child from an upper middle class, two-income family in New York City, who knows that her parents' marriage is about to fall apart. She's guided by a classmate whose parents already are divorced 3 years earlier, he's new kid at her school. She's mildly precocious, she reads "The Joy of Sex", the illustrated edition, no less, but she's also a topographical nitwit.The two best things about this film are Trini Alvarado's acting and the scenes of New York which depict a dreamy era. It wasn't so innocent a time, Iran hostage crisis, Reaganomics, and a time when police brutality against minorities was worse than now, but we didn't know about it then. But still. This offers a peek into a somewhat magical New York where 12 year olds demand to walk to school alone, because they're well...12 and not babies, where a class of 25-30 pupils goes to do PE with just ONE teacher in Central Park and where kids walk their dogs solo. (To be sure, this is the 'good' part of town, and 2016 crime is actually half now of what it was in the 80s New York City. Of course this is not what it FEELS like these days. There's the socio-economic paradox of 'the less crime there actually is, the unsafer 'people' - read: whites - .... FEEL'........I digress.)The movie is dated in the displayed attitudes towards women, Jamies mother doesn't care if her 12 year old SON "screws the brains out" of a 12 year old girl (!), which points to severe unbalance: boys can do what they want, but girls are floozies. Also, there's like 5 gratitutous (and unflattering) shots of Alvarado's butt. That seems a bit unfriendly. The dated attitude towards gays which we see in the vehement denial of Franny that her father might be gay. Nowadays it would come with an obligatory addition of "It would be okay if he was, of course". Not so much in 1979.8 oth 10, The Melancholic Alcoholic.
MuzikNFilm
Franny is 12 years old. She, unknowingly, is the glue that keeps her parents together. When she starts keeping tabs on her Dad, however, she begins to unravel the thread that we all dread, Mom and Dad aren't too happy with one another and they are not being honest with their little girl about it. So she starts learning about divorce from a new boy in school who has recently been through it. She realizes that kids have a maturity level that parents never will achieve. Thus said, the parents embark on an all out search for their daughter amidst the crazy world of a rich kid who has everything. His Dad lives in the most idyllic bachelor pad and doesn't dote on him, his mother is happily married to a psychiatrist cause she doesn't have to pay for the sessions. Ahhh the pleasures of divorce. Franny comes full circle with the acknowledgement of her fighting parents and that it's not her fault and they will love her no matter what. If you are a Robert Altman fan then this film is for you. If you like a good family film with a great score then this is for you. I saw it in the theaters in 1979 and have since loved it on every viewing. I wish this movie was on DVD, but for the time being look for it on Showtime or Encore in WS.
