Cinema Crazed

1973

Rated: PG-13 for nudity, and adult language.

Genre: Drama Romance Comedy

Directed By: Paul Mazursky

Running Time: 1:55

Review by: Felix Vasquez Jr.

Review Date: 2/22/07

Special Features:
Theatrical Trailer

BLUME IN LOVE (DVD)

Steven Blume is a man who just doesn’t know what he wants. He’s middle-aged and still so enticed by women, even though he once had a great relationship with his wife. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too. But he’s such a self-involved walking contradiction, that he finds he just can’t find satisfaction with anyone else but his wife. And now he wants her back. But why? Territory, perhaps. Feelings of entitlement, and probably so he can be able to cheat on her again. Because with a wife he’s a married man cheating, but without her, he’s a single middle-aged man who can’t find satisfaction with a woman. George Segal is great as this sexually confused man who wants to be married and still have the advantage of being with other women. But he learns that’s not how life works, sometimes.

It really does add a sense of irony that Blume can not accept that his marriage is over, even when his wife Nina moves on. Because she becomes the forbidden fruit, the blossoming flower she could not become in their marriage. Married to her, he complains to his therapist that there are so many women out there that tempt him, “How could I not?” he asks. But once Nina becomes untouchable, and completely dismisses anything he has to offer her after their divorce, suddenly he realizes she’s desirable.

And thus, without him she blooms into someone better. She learns Yoga, and music, she’s stronger and outspoken, and her life isn’t so dead end anymore. Not to mention she meets a kind musician (played with gusto by Kris Kristofferson) who lives out the back of his VW, and relies on his ambitions to get by. Blume, self-absorbed, and devoted to self-gratification, can not understand this. As we delve deeper into their relationship, we learn that the marriage was over way before the cheating began. Even though Blume never can draw the conclusion. Mazursky examines with such insight, the intricacies and politics of marriage and relationships, and makes Blume a likable sap, a man we can involves ourselves with, even though he’s not smart enough to catch on to certain realities.

Mazursky's relationship drama is very much in the vein of Woody Allen, about a self-absorbed man we can't help sympathize for when he loses the love of his life, and can't quite understand why, in the face of adultery. George Segal is memorable, and Mazursky's film is thought provoking.

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