The Thing Called Love *** (1993, River Phoenix, Samantha Mathis, Dermot Mulroney, Sandra Bullock) – Classic Movie Review 4558

Director Peter Bogdanovich’s 1993 romantic comedy drama, with country music and a love triangle, is the 13th and last completed film of River Phoenix before his untimely death at the age of only 23.

Phoenix plays a country and western hopeful in Nashville where he meets a girl called Miranda Presley (Samantha Mathis) fresh in from New York to try to make her fame and fortune. Miranda auditions at The Bluebird Cafe, is not invited to perform, takes a job as a waitress and befriends Linda Lue Linden (Sandra Bullock). Miranda meets James Wright (Phoenix), but at first she seems to prefer steady singer-writer Kyle Davidson (Dermot Mulroney). However, soon of course she is honing in on bad boy James and falls in love with him.

Written by Carol Heikkinen, the drama is talky, under-powered and unresolved, but nevertheless it is still fresh, engaging and even touching, erasing any suspicion that we have been here before.

Bogdanovich makes the material seem real and unusual, handling it with great attention to the everyday flavour of American lives, moving between tatty bar, hotel and diner, and making a real achievement out of developing his characters of good-hearted but ambitious young people trying to make it.

The acting is appealing, though unfortunately the fascinating Phoenix plays second fiddle character in the film to the less interesting Mathis. Good though she is, all eyes are on Phoenix when they are on screen together. There is an earful of pleasant country and western music, with the leads singing their songs for real – and rather well too.

Deborah Allen, Jo-El Sonnier, Pam Tillis, Vern Monnett, Kevin Welch, Trisha Yearwood and Jimmie Dale Gilmore all appear as themselves. Also in the cast are K T Olin, Anthony Clark, Webb Wilder and Earl Poole Ball.

It runs 116 minutes, with 120 minutes in the director’s cut.

After mostly negative reviews, it was a disaster at the box office. Costing $14 million, it took back just over $1 million at the US box office, while VHS and later DVD sales are poor.

Mathis was Phoenix’s last girlfriend and his companion at the fateful Hallowe’en night at The Viper Room on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles on 31 October 1993 when Phoenix suffered a drug overdose, collapsed on the sidewalk and died.

Phoenix was in the middle of filming Dark Blood (1993). With with important scenes needing to be shot, the film was abandoned on 18 November 1993. It was finally released in 2012, with four to six missing scenes replaced with director George Sluizer providing narration.

Phoenix completed only 13 films, including Explorers (1985), Stand by Me (1986), The Mosquito Coast (1986), A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988), Running on Empty (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), My Own Private Idaho and Sneakers (1992) .

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4558

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