Very disappointing...

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a lovely romantic film, with a tad too much melodrama. Romantic and inviting settings with silky cinematography and a brilliant cast promise much more than the film finally offers Peter Coyote and Greta Scacchi enrich the core of the narrative. Supporting players play nuances well.The director Diane Kurys obviously loves the locales she uses. I too love them.However, the director wastes Scacchi, as have other directors wasted her in too many films. Scacchi is simply too intelligent to be a constant sexual fantasy of a subordinate woman. She played the ingénue not longer than she could but longer than she needed to play that role.In the end, the film is not quite ostentatious and wearisome. It is what it is, a romance played to despair. It is not Truffaut but it resonates sometimes with that sense of life. Someday, I would love to hear commentary by the directors and players.I think it well worth viewing.

This film gained a bit of notoriety when it was first released in the UK when the BBFC asked for some of Greta Scacchi's love scene to be cut because her body was on view for too long, but more of that later. The backdrop to this film is the making of a film about Italian writer Cesare Pavese who committed suicide after his affair with American actress Constance Dowling came to an end. The writers could have invented a fictitious scenario instead of using a real person so perhaps someone had a personal interest in Pavese.Steve Elliott (Peter Coyote) arrives in Rome to make a film about Cesare Pavese and chooses Jane Steiner (Greta Scacchi) to be the love interest. As work progresses, so Steve and Jane fall for each other, a scenario which happens all too frequently in real life. To complicate matters, Steve's family arrive in Rome and so Steve and Jane must tread carefully in their affair. The title should have been A Woman In Love. It is Jane rather than Steve who seems to be the person in love. She is the one who longs to be with him and runs to him when they meet at the airport, but it becomes obvious that Steve is never going to leave his family so this clandestine affair is set for failure. This film is more than a story about two people, it is about relationships in the family and between friends and the coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.The film is certainly a lavish production with big names such as Jamie Lee Curtis and Claudia Cardinale, as well as location shooting in Rome and Paris. There is an intriguing scene in a theatre where a rehearsal for a play called La Veillee (The Evening) is taking place. It looks like a comedy set in a restaurant. The way the camera pans from a poster of the play to the stage suggests more than a hint of advertising.This film is a bit of a rarity in the UK. It was released on VHS in 1988 and then disappeared with no UK DVD release so far. This review is from a French DVD. The picture ratio is 2.35:1 with English or French audio but there are no English subtitles for the occasional French and Italian dialogue. The scene which caused the BBFC to get hot under the collar occurs when Steve and Jane are in bed doing their lesbian fantasy thing. It was cut by 25 seconds. In total, the UK VHS ran for 106 minutes whilst the French DVD runs for 115 minutes. It is interesting rather than enthralling so 7 stars.

First of all, seeing the fuss of over post-coital fantasy pillow talk being such the focus of the discussion of this film is disturbing. There IS no "lesbian love scene". There are NO scenes of sex between two women. Jane simply describes a fantasy encounter, even editing it to his wishes, to her man. It's pillow talk. Anyone renting this for such a scene will be greatly disappointed. Okay, there's some nudity; but this isn't soft core porn. It isn't even Nine and a Half Weeks. The sex scenes are far more subtle; no humping, sorry. I don't see how anyone with realistic expectations could possibly be disappointed. It's a delightful, realistic romance. A married man falls in love with a younger woman; who happens to be an ingénue, his love interest in the film of which he's the star. Coyote plays to perfection "The American Movie Star" filming in Europe. Set in spectacular locales, it's more than a love story between the two principal characters. It's a love story showing the director's love of the locations where it was filmed. This; and relating with the storyline of a European love affair, is what makes this one of my all time favorite films. Who could possibly complain about the music by the genius that was Georges Delerue? (the sole 80's synth-pop track aside)And to the previous poster "wondering what Kurys was thinking" - a little research will divulge the film's semi-autobiographical nature. Look up Kurys' listing here, in her earlier years. You'll find where she worked on a film with a popular American actor (not his costar as in this film, but it's obvious enough). She wasn't just "thinking" - the fact that this is a bit of memoir makes it all that much more endearing.This is one of the most highly UNDER rated films of all time, as underrated as Coyote is actor. But expect a romantic film (by all definitions) and watch it for what it's worth - there is beauty in its simplicity.

For the life of me I have no idea what type of movie director Diane Kurys was trying to make here . It centres around the relationship between American director Steve Elliot and English actress Jane Steiner . It contains long - Too long - scenes of romantic European cities with romantic music in the background but at the same time is possibly too explicit to be a simple love story . For example Steve gets Jane to tell him an erotic lesbian fantasy " I can feel her lips on my nipples as I rub my hand between her legs ... " and there's some nudity . But the problem with MAN IN LOVE is that there's zero plot . Okay I wasn't expecting car chases or Bruce Willis crashing through windows but the story ends up going nowhere . In many ways it's like a meaningless Mills & Boon story that might strike a cord with women who have just experienced a holiday romance . No doubt French film students will think this some sort of romantic masterwork but I didn't care for it apart from the lesbian fantasy monologue