The Way We Were

The Way We Were
Watched: January 23rd 2011

   I was very excited to watch this film because one, I absolutely love Robert Redford, and two, there's an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie quotes a line from the ending when saying goodbye to Mr. Big. When something I haven't seen is referenced in a medium of pop culture I like to educate myself. I did the same thing when I watched the Graduate. I'd always wanted to see it, but that desire heightened after seeing (500) days of summer and loving that film. I'm not a huge Sex and the City or anything, but I figured if it was good enough for Carrie Bradshaw, it was good enough for me--and I love Robert Redford.
   I was sadly very disappointed by this film. Perhaps it is because I'm far too apathetic about political rantings, I realize we need people who are politically active like the film's main character Katie, but I'm just not interested in watching people yell about government issues for two hours. If I wanted to do that I'd fly to Washington and sit in on Congress. Besides, her yelling was half the movie. Sometimes it was about politics, sometimes it was about the difficulty of love, but lots of yelling either way. The other half of the movie, was slow, dragging, boring conversations. There was no arc to the story it merely went from subdued moments to flaring moments and then back again over and over. It was like watching a yo-yo bounce up and down, never doing any cool tricks.
   I found it ironic as well that Redford's character was constantly whining about people wanting to cut scenes from his film because they weren't necessary when that's exactly what I wanted to do to this one. A faster pace might have help this movie to keep me engaged. That, and three dimensional characters. It didn't feel like any of them learned anything at all. There was no growth, Redford was always as latent as a pin cushion and Kate, played by Barbara Streisand, was needy, annoying, and too obsessed to realize she was doing nothing but hurting herself. Both just kept making the same mistakes so many times that by the ending scene I didn't care about either one of them, which is a shame because it seemed lovely and that was what I had been waiting for the whole time.
   Though their characters were monotonous I did like Redford and Streisand's chemistry. They work well together on-screen in both romantic and conflict scenes. There were some beautiful lines, and some of the moments of silence were absolutely perfect. However, they were precious gems embedded in lackluster cave.