The Thing Called Love Movie Review

Let's try for just a moment to ignore some of the media ca-ca of the last few years. Before he died on Halloween morning 1993, River Phoenix made a couple of movies that failed to attract wide distribution: Sam Shepard's Silent Tongue and Peter Bogdanovich's The Thing Called Love. If Phoenix were still alive, one would be forced to confess that his acting was going through a bad patch. The way things turned out, neither film offers much in the way of an enduring legacy. In Silent Tongue, Phoenix's performance is completely out of control; he mugs furiously, and, it must be said, artificially, in the role of a grief-stricken young widower. The same actor who acquitted himself with such distinction in many other ensemble showcases is entirely outacted by Alan Bates, Richard Harris, Sheila Tousey, and Jeri Arrendondo. In The Thing Called Love, we see an ashen-faced Phoenix, old beyond his years, delivering a mannered performance by what appears to be rote. His expressions and gestures seem cluttered; he isn't feeling his way through the part, he's just passing through, with only the most perfunctory investment in the trip. Phoenix’ artistic decline is all the more striking when contrasted with the glowing work of his co-star Samantha Mathis, who approaches her role with intelligent assurance. Even Dermot Mulroney, who was just as inept as Phoenix in Silent Tongue, does a pretty credible job under the guidance of Bogdanovich. The story of hopeful young singers looking for love with all the wrong partners is so slow and so slight that its eventual distributor deliberately kept the movie away from the claws of big city reviewers. Maybe they hoped The Thing Called Love would strike gold on video, but on its first day at our neighborhood outlet where ALL new releases are ripped off the shelves, every single copy was still in the store at five minutes to midnight. Overlooked at the time of release was Sandra Bullock, microseconds away from superstardom via Speed.

1993 (PG-13) 116m/C River Phoenix, Samantha Mathis, Sandra Bullock, Dermot Mulroney, K.T. Oslin, Anthony Clark, Webb Wilder; Cameos: Trisha Year-wood; D: Peter Bogdanovich; W: Allan Moyle, Carol Heikkinen; C: Peter James. VHS, LV, Closed Caption