| Funny About Love | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Leonard Nimoy |
| Written by | Norman Steinberg David Frankel |
| Based on | "Convention of the Love Goddesses"[1] inEsquire Magazine byBob Greene |
| Produced by | Jon Avnet Jordan Kerner |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Fred Murphy |
| Edited by | Peter E. Berger |
| Music by | Miles Goodman |
Production companies | Duffy Films Avnet/Kerner Productions |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 101 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $8.1 million[3] |
 Farrah Fawcett,"Funny About Love",publicity still[4] | |
| Gene Wilder,Farrah Fawcett,"Funny About Love",publicity still[5] | |
| Mary Stuart Masterson, Gene Wilder, Christine Lahti and Farrah Fawcett."Funny About Love",publicity still[6] | |
| Gene Wilder,Farrah Fawcett,"Funny About Love",publicity still[7] |
Funny About Love is a 1990 Americanromantic comedy film directed byLeonard Nimoy and starringGene Wilder in his first romantic lead along withChristine Lahti andMary Stuart Masterson.[8] With a screenplay by Norman Steinberg andDavid Frankel, the film is based on the article "Convention of the Love Goddesses"[1] inEsquire Magazine byBob Greene.[9] The film was a critical and commercial failure.
New York cartoonist Duffy Bergman marries gourmet chef Meg Lloyd.[10] Meg wants to have a baby. Duffy agrees, but after unsuccessful attempts, Duffy encourages her to focus on her career and come back to the child issue later. After his mother's death, however, Duffy becomes fixated on wanting to have a child. Meg no longer sees this as a priority, as she's trying to open her own restaurant. The two start to have marital problems, leading to a separation.
Duffy travels to Arizona to speak at aDelta Gamma sorority convention. He explains that the Delta Gammas have always been his dream girls—his Love Goddesses. There he meets the much younger Daphne Delillo, and when she moves to New York to work as a network sports reporter, their attraction develops into a relationship. Daphne becomes pregnant. Duffy is happy to father a child, but uncomfortable with how fast this relationship is progressing. When she has a miscarriage, Daphne breaks up with him, believing that they were really staying in the relationship for the baby.
At his father's wedding, Duffy hears news about Meg and decides to go to her restaurant. He tries to reconcile with her, insisting that he doesn't care if they remain childless as long as he can be with her. Duffy discovers that Meg has adopted a baby boy.
The film was originally produced with Gene Wilder's character having three love interests - Christine Lahti, Mary Stuart Masterson, andFarrah Fawcett. After test screenings, a decision was made to cut all of Fawcett's scenes and re-edit.[11][12] These edits were late in the production process, and it is believed that some promotional material was distributed with incorrect information.[13] Fawcett is not credited in the movie.
Funny About Love opened in 1,213 theaters on September 21, 1990, and grossed $3,036,352 in its opening weekend, landing at #5, behindGoodfellas,Postcards from the Edge's second weekend,Ghost's eleventh, andNarrow Margin.[14] The film would eventually gross $8,141,292 in the domestic box office.[3]
The film was panned by critics.[15] Based on 7 reviews, the film has a 0% rating on review aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes.[16]
Janet Maslin of theNew York Times gave the film a mixed review.
Infertility, divorce and loneliness shape the rambling plot, but they somehow do little to make the film substantial. ... Once the film settles down to follow Duffy and Meg in their eager efforts to conceive a baby, it develops at least some recognizable emotional content.[17]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times had nothing but disdain for the film, giving it only a half of a star rating out of the four stars scale he used.
Funny About Love provides an opportunity to spend 101 minutes in the presence of the most cloying, inane and annoying dialogue I've heard in many a moon, punctuated only by occasional lapses into startling bad manners.[18]
Gene Siskel was also scathing in his review on Siskel and Ebert's showAt the Movies, remarking that unusually for him, during the screening of the film he stood up in horror at one scene taking place at a sporting event and said to Ebert, "I've seen it all."
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