The Way We Were

The Way We Were... is not really a valid title, for so few of us were this way.

The Way We Were is a fluke -- a torpedoed ship full of gaping holes that comes snugly into port.

For a screen romance with huge movie stars, that sentiment feels pretty real.

Streisand is capable in an implausible role as a liberated Jewess, and Redford is...well, Redford.

By, some peculiar alchemy, "The Way We Were" turns into the kind of compromised claptrap that Hubbell is supposed to be making within the film and that we're meant to think is a sellout. It is.

The movie has the look of a big Hollywood romantic film but because director Pollack looks corruption in the face and exposes it for what it feels like, The Way We Were emerges as one of the least sentimental love stories ever filmed.

What maintains The Way We Were through its potential cringes is the realism of the romantic arc and the believable chemistry between the two leads -- equal passion and frustration, at times a perfect romance and others a doomed affair.

Casting Streisand and Redford was brilliant as they are clearly on opposite ends of the spectrum but have an obvious onscreen chemistry that makes the movie work.

It's a movie with big sharp teeth but no bite. The mouth opens, the dentures fall out and the story just sits there gaping at its own emptiness.

Even if its appeal as a passionate upmarket weepie is not your thing, the film might carry you along with its interest in social history.