Fascinating for how it suggests a different career Spielberg could have had. It’s such a pre-Jaws 70’s film. Obviously it’d be ridiculous to say Spielberg didn’t find his niche as the most successful filmmaker of all-time (right? I suppose it’s possible that, adjusted for inflation, Cecil B. Demille or someone made more box office, but it’s gotta be a slim margin), but one wonders what would have happened if he had kept chasing films like this.
At any rate, this is a really good movie that feels a few script rewrites and casting changes away from being a classic. William Atherton and Michael Sacks can’t match the raw power of Goldie Hawn’s performance and, for what mostly plays as a comedy (albeit a tragic one, with the ending always feeling inevitable) it’s more charming and amusing than funny. Really well directed, though. That moment of clarity that comes from Wile E. Coyote packs a real emotional wallop. And of course, as someone who grew up in Houston, I’m always nostalgic for Texas highways in film, even if this didn’t feel as specific and local a depiction of the state as films like True Stories or Bernie (the “dumb southern yokels” trope gets pushed a bit hard for my liking). B
Martha Marcy Nash and Young 