Many IMDb reviewers have expressed fondness for this movie, most with a few caveats. It's not surprising to me that others like it and I don't. What's surprising is that those who do like it seem to care about the same things I do - script, acting, story, emotional impact - yet come to the exact opposite conclusion that I do in evaluating each element.
I didn't see this movie when it came out, and that may be a key point. I'm old enough to remember still loving Alan Alda and everything he did at the time California Suite was made. Maybe if I had seen it then, I would have been impressed by the verbal back-and-forth between Alda and Jane Fonda, or by the inclusion of Cosby and Pryor as unexpected African American professionals, or maybe even by the near coming-to-grips with queer politics in the Maggie Smith/Michael Caine scenes. At the age I was then, I also found Walter Matthau almost irresistibly funny.
But here's the thing. I'm also old enough to remember when I began to find Alan Alda characters, both as they were written and as he played them, excruciatingly self-indulgent, insufferably self-righteous, and generally in love with the sound of their own voice, with the net effect that they couldn't genuinely connect with anyone around them and didn't seem to care. Where could you find the quintessential, I'm-so-sensitive Alan Alda character of the 70's and 80's? Staking out the moral high ground, while snidely pointing out how no one else was joining him.
That's the case here. He chews through Neil Simon's contrived and repetitive dialog with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smugness as if he's actually rendering astute, bullet point observations about Jane Fonda's character, or about the mature life choices he's made, and the epiphanies he's had. He's not. And neither is anyone else in this movie.
Nevertheless, Jane picks up her flint, sharpens the edge and away we go, because that's what you do in a Neil Simon comedy. Except that no one goes anywhere. The script is so lacking in insight that waiting for these two to finish a scene, put down their tools, and go collect their checks takes a numbing eternity. With so many salvos fired, there should be some colorful bursts, but every one is a dud.
Neither actor manages to pitch their lines with a single, convincing feeling, let alone build toward an emotional climax. The script simply doesn't provide one. So jarring in fact, is the why-not-here/how-about-there raising of their voices, that it brings to mind wartime speeches read aloud by captives. A few awkward cadences and over-emphasized words lets the home folks know they don't mean it. A rich irony indeed for Jane Fonda.
Walter Matthau, I'm sorry to say, is just irritating. Even he can't redeem a trite, horrifying attempt at sexual comedy, without the sex, that would have been unworthy of a two-minute sketch on the Carole Burnett show. He deserved better. The late seventies were his salad days, when his gruff, call-my-bluff-if-you-dare persona usually generated laughs. Yet here is, downsized to a cloying, simpering imitation of someone funny that 1978 audiences no doubt expected to hit it out of the park. He tries everything but registering a complaint. I would have forgiven him for saying look, I'm usually good at this stuff, you know I am, but I got nothing to work with here.
And don't get me started on Cosby and Pryor. From an inspired decision to write them as doctors, to a miserable, when-will-it-end insult to the audience, these two wasted talents are reduced to stumbling around in a dance macabre that the Three Stooges would have lent more dignity. It's as if the audience is being asked to laugh at a nasty, open secret: see, we let them play against race as urban sophisticates, but it's obvious what they're best at. Except it's not.
Smith and Caine? Maggie manages what no one else does in this film, which is to draw us in, swinging deftly between rage and vulnerability. She occupies the only breathing space in the whole film. She's given little to do really, but succeeds well enough to be awarded that Hollywood staple, the make-up Oscar for having been ignored in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Michael Caine plays her bored, gay husband with as much restraint as possible, but even he can't overcome the cluttered, too-clever-by-half lines Simon has written.
All in all, California Suite is an obnoxious experience, fatally lacking in wit. Bloated scene after bloated scene simply collapses under too many lines with too little substance. Almost everyone involved should have known better, and has done much better on other projects. For Neil Simon, it's as if he knew none of it was sticking, so he just kept throwing more spaghetti at the wall.
I didn't see this movie when it came out, and that may be a key point. I'm old enough to remember still loving Alan Alda and everything he did at the time California Suite was made. Maybe if I had seen it then, I would have been impressed by the verbal back-and-forth between Alda and Jane Fonda, or by the inclusion of Cosby and Pryor as unexpected African American professionals, or maybe even by the near coming-to-grips with queer politics in the Maggie Smith/Michael Caine scenes. At the age I was then, I also found Walter Matthau almost irresistibly funny.
But here's the thing. I'm also old enough to remember when I began to find Alan Alda characters, both as they were written and as he played them, excruciatingly self-indulgent, insufferably self-righteous, and generally in love with the sound of their own voice, with the net effect that they couldn't genuinely connect with anyone around them and didn't seem to care. Where could you find the quintessential, I'm-so-sensitive Alan Alda character of the 70's and 80's? Staking out the moral high ground, while snidely pointing out how no one else was joining him.
That's the case here. He chews through Neil Simon's contrived and repetitive dialog with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smugness as if he's actually rendering astute, bullet point observations about Jane Fonda's character, or about the mature life choices he's made, and the epiphanies he's had. He's not. And neither is anyone else in this movie.
Nevertheless, Jane picks up her flint, sharpens the edge and away we go, because that's what you do in a Neil Simon comedy. Except that no one goes anywhere. The script is so lacking in insight that waiting for these two to finish a scene, put down their tools, and go collect their checks takes a numbing eternity. With so many salvos fired, there should be some colorful bursts, but every one is a dud.
Neither actor manages to pitch their lines with a single, convincing feeling, let alone build toward an emotional climax. The script simply doesn't provide one. So jarring in fact, is the why-not-here/how-about-there raising of their voices, that it brings to mind wartime speeches read aloud by captives. A few awkward cadences and over-emphasized words lets the home folks know they don't mean it. A rich irony indeed for Jane Fonda.
Walter Matthau, I'm sorry to say, is just irritating. Even he can't redeem a trite, horrifying attempt at sexual comedy, without the sex, that would have been unworthy of a two-minute sketch on the Carole Burnett show. He deserved better. The late seventies were his salad days, when his gruff, call-my-bluff-if-you-dare persona usually generated laughs. Yet here is, downsized to a cloying, simpering imitation of someone funny that 1978 audiences no doubt expected to hit it out of the park. He tries everything but registering a complaint. I would have forgiven him for saying look, I'm usually good at this stuff, you know I am, but I got nothing to work with here.
And don't get me started on Cosby and Pryor. From an inspired decision to write them as doctors, to a miserable, when-will-it-end insult to the audience, these two wasted talents are reduced to stumbling around in a dance macabre that the Three Stooges would have lent more dignity. It's as if the audience is being asked to laugh at a nasty, open secret: see, we let them play against race as urban sophisticates, but it's obvious what they're best at. Except it's not.
Smith and Caine? Maggie manages what no one else does in this film, which is to draw us in, swinging deftly between rage and vulnerability. She occupies the only breathing space in the whole film. She's given little to do really, but succeeds well enough to be awarded that Hollywood staple, the make-up Oscar for having been ignored in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Michael Caine plays her bored, gay husband with as much restraint as possible, but even he can't overcome the cluttered, too-clever-by-half lines Simon has written.
All in all, California Suite is an obnoxious experience, fatally lacking in wit. Bloated scene after bloated scene simply collapses under too many lines with too little substance. Almost everyone involved should have known better, and has done much better on other projects. For Neil Simon, it's as if he knew none of it was sticking, so he just kept throwing more spaghetti at the wall.