Surrender (1987) We don't want to sound like we're overpraising this hardly remembered slight little rom-com, but it fulfilled at least two essentials for the genre.
1. Sometimes, it's really funny (though veers dangerously close to silliness.)
2. It has two appealing beloved stars who spark some genuine chemistry with other.
You'd be surprised how many rom-coms can't meet those basic requirements.
We've long been fans of Sally Field and Michael Caine and they're more than up to the hijinks this movie throws at them.
Caine's a best selling novelist whose wives, both legal and common law have taken him to the cleaners in divorce court. He swears off women altogether until he and Field connect in a bizarre, yet original meet-cute.
At a huge public event invaded by armed robbers, they're stripped naked and tied up together. How could love not ensue after that?
Field's a barely struggling artist working in an assembly line warehouse that pumps out Bob Ross-like paintings for hotel rooms. Still wary of rapacious women, Caine tenderly starts a relationship with her, pretending he's a broke, equally struggling would-be writer.
We won't bother detailing all the usual rom-com complications that detonate these lovebirds' path to Happily Ever After, but you could pretty much plot them yourself.
Still, we had a smiling nice time with watching two of our favorite actors find true love and couldn't help rooting for them all the way. (We even tolerated Steve Guttenberg in that thankless role as the annoying, third wheel soon-to-be-dumped boyfriend of Field)
And as a bonus, writer-director Jerry Belson peppers up the brew with plenty of snappy lines.
A fine sweet time waster. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)
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