Sadly Over-hyped

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film begins with Lenny (Charles Grodin) marrying Lila (Jeannie Berlin). On the honeymoon it is obvious that his new wife can be very annoying and she eats like a pig...though he surely must have known all this as they had been dating. After all, it wasn't like the marriage was one of those arranged ones!! So on one hand, you can understand Lenny becoming disenchanted with her...but he knew who he was marrying! To make it much worse, he starts looking at other women and begins dating while he's STILL on his honeymoon!!! Clearly, Lenny is a super-jerk and Kelly (Cybill Shepherd) inexplicably wants him....even though she knows he just got married. Not surprisingly, her father (Eddie Albert) wants to kill Lenny...and who would blame him?! So what's next? See the film.If you had to sum up this movie in one word, AWKWARD would be pretty accurate! There are many moments where the viewer will likely feel awkward and squirm a bit as they watch that weasel Lenny! I like comedy like this...the more awkward the better. But my wife hates stuff like this and so I am glad I didn't watch the movie with her. So, if films like "The King of Comedy" or the Veal Prince Orloff episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" make you cringe, skip this film!I think the other reason I really enjoyed this movie was Eddie Albert and his wonderful character. Again and again, I found myself laughing whenever he spoke...and it's among his best performances. It's no surprise, then, that he was Oscar-nominated for this. He was incredibly blunt, funny and hard to dislike! And, he seemed to be the only one outraged at Lenny's god-awful actions and the inane blather that came out of Lenny's mouth!Overall, a wonderful film and I have no idea why they would bother remaking it...but that's Hollywood for you.By the way, the music to this film is awful...but representative of the times. I lived through this era and hated hearing the likes of "Close to You" again and again! Somehow I managed to tune it all out, thank goodness!

I had seen Ben Stiller's 2007 remake of this film.It was nothing short of awful,but I thought to myself,surely the original,which I had not as yet seen,isn't this bad.I went with the film's basic idea,which was funny yet tragic in a way,and decided to see if it told the story better.Took a while to find it because I can never find it on television,and it isn't available through my video mailing service.Finally found it on the web and gave it a gander.Overall,I was impressed.It was perfectly casted from top to bottom.Who wouldn't fall in love with Cybill Shepherd? I also enjoyed Eddie Albert as the "rich brick wall" of a father to Cybill's character.I did feel bad for the Grodin's bride and I do wish that they hadn't left her fate so open ended.The moral of the story is clear;Don't marry someone just because you are in a hurry to settle down.Sometimes true love takes a while.Wait for it.

****************WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***************This is a wonderful comedy, written by Neil Simon from a story by Bruce Jay Friedman and directed by Elaine May, the former partner in comedy to Mike Nichols, It's one of Cybil Shepherd's first movie parts and also stars Elaine May's daughter (Jeannie Berlin) in a role that is not glamorous and makes a convincing case that there was no nepotism involved in the casting of this movie. Charles Grodin plays an extremely foolish Jewish man from New York who marries a Jewish girl merely out of convenience( Jeannie Berlin). On their honeymoon his wife becomes incommoded and is left to fend for herself whilst Lenny falls into lust with a young, sexy WASP he meets on the beach, who he describes in his own mind as his 'ideal' woman. Kelly (Cybil Shepherd) is, on the face of it, attractive on the outside, but perhaps a little lacking in other attributes such as intellect or character. Lenny meets her parents to inform them of his feelings for their daughter, but her rich father is not impressed.'The Hearbreak Kid' can best be described as a 'comedy of embarrassment' both for the characters and the audience. This film is an hilarious example of how much funnier it is to laugh 'at' people instead of 'with' them and that's why the audience is embarrassed by watching this film. Lenny from the start is portrayed by Grodin as nothing more than a naive, grasping, horny young fool; Kelly is selfish, grasping, and unaware of anything going on outside of her own tiny universe. Her parents are cardboard cut-outs without any kind of character or judgment. As played by Eddie Albert, Kelly's father is a dangerous buffoon even more out of control than Lenny and when Lenny and Kelly finally do get together they are both sorely disappointed with the result.I am far too young to appreciate the past glories of the Nichols and May comedy team who were such a success in the U.S. in the 50's. I can only tell you that judging from this film, Elaine May has a marvellous eye for the foibles of people and manages to turn satire into something with a deeper meaning to it. It seems as though we are all little people as judged by the universe, with very little hope or opportunity to attain something that may be greater than ourselves. There is nobody in this film who appears to be very bright, so you could say that it's a case of equal opportunity silliness, with nobody intentionally singled out. It's a film that does not confirm one's faith in other people and it's a daring ride to have the carpet tugged out from underfoot by the comic unpredicability of the plot and character. Since I am probably one of the few persistent souls who made the effort to rescue this title from the obscurity to which it has been consigned, I can't imagine that it's to be released anywhere or anytime in any zone in the near future and I find this prospect disappointing. That this film has been so criminally overlooked is a mystery to me and it gives me a great amount of pleasure to give it the highest recommendation that I can without looking foolish.

This is a movie that operates on more than one level, most of which is so subtle as to be nearly imperceptible --or at least seems to be imperceptible, dwarfed as everything else is by the manifest opprobrium of the main character.Superficially what we all clearly see is a dark comedy about a despicable cad, Lenny, who is not just despicable, but despicable with oblivious aplomb, a role played masterfully by Charles Grodin, the aforementioned opprobrious main character and star of the movie. That factoid right there sets up a dynamic wherein people are either going to love this movie or hate this movie, based strictly on how Lenny strikes them. Some find humor in this guy, but others do not. Many are off-put. So off-put, in fact, that they can't get past it. In that way I would compare this 1972 film to a more contemporary one, Sideways (2004). In Sideways the main characters, Jack in particular (played by Thomas Haden Church), were so personally offensive, in word, in thought, and in deed, that many people intensely disliked the movie solely on that basis. People say to me, "I hated Sideways." I ask them why and they say, "I couldn't stand Jack." Some perspective is called for here. The viewer is supposed to dislike Jack in Sideways. That was intended. Maybe find him a little entertaining --or not-- but disliking him is the intended effect. Likewise here with Lenny in The Heartbreak Kid. We are supposed to dislike Lenny. We can laugh at him too if we want to, and he is funny, but disapproval and repulsion is the intent.At the very least Lenny's actions make most people just plain awkwardly uncomfortable. The movie thereby evokes certain feelings and emotions in the viewer that aren't often evoked by movies, which, all by itself, makes this movie unique. As a work of art it makes it a success. And that's just the superficiality of it. There's more to it than just that. Bruce Jay Friedman, the writer, and Neil Simon, the director, were actually making some much deeper ethnic observations and social commentary here. Commentary about Jews, about Jews and Jewish culture in modern America, about Gentiles too, and about how Jews and Gentiles interact in that modern America. All that. But mostly the observations and commentary was about the condition of young Jewish men (some of the very same turf that was being plowed by novelist Philip Roth in about the same era as this movie was released). Lenny, the character played by Grodin, is the almost stereo-typical young angst-filled Jewish male, desperate to break out from the box of tradition which was preordained for him, and who rubbishes his very Jewish bride on their honeymoon to lust after a very Gentile blond, Cybil Shepherd as Kelly Corcoran, all as a part of that angst condition. The Corcoran family, meanwhile, presenting themselves as the cold, aloof uptight WASPs.Friedman had a lot to say here. Simon executed it well. Probably among Simon's best work, although not ever really recognized as such. A remake with Ben Stiller in the Lenny role is now in the works, soon in the offing. We'll have to see if they improve upon the original. I have my doubts that they can even come close. While not perfect, the original is a good movie. But perhaps the time for this story has passed. It was relevant, pertinent, and apropos for 1972. Not so sure about that in 2007. Not to disparage Ben Stiller, but the underlying themes of this movie wouldn't mean as much today as it did 35 years ago.Grodin and Shepherd give good performances. Eddie Albert did too. I heard Cybil say in an interview not all that long ago that she always wished they'd done a sequel to it, and that she was still open to the possibility. Very much worth seeing before one sees any remaking of it.