The Way We Were

The Way We Were (1973) starring Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand. Opposites attract in a romance that spans decades, with Streisand the Communist crusader Katie Morosky and Redford as the straight-arrow Navy man Hubbell Gardiner. They first meet at college in the 1930s, but they don't start to get together until World War II is in full swing and they run into each other at a bar in New York. After they are involved, they realize they are not compatible and break up. Then, after a brief make-up scene, they are magically married and living in California, where Hubbell has become a screenwriter. Trouble is still brewing for them, though, because of the 1950s blacklist. You get a feeling that Katie's Communist past will come back to haunt her and Hubbell. This movie is a real tear-jerker, mainly because Katie loves Hubbell without reserve and he can't reciprocate her feelings. But I found the on-screen chemistry between Redford and Streisand to be a little hard to believe, and there were two or three spots in the film where giant jumps in time and space were made without transition. I found it very unsatisfying. Besides, I'm still not crazy about Streisand. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B-