A love story revolving around a young, aspiring politician. Good for Gordon, I suppose, in trying to raise the emotional stakes at a time when many other filmmakers prefer their drama dry. This one certainly is moist.
Few experiences can make one as squirmy as witnessing some stranger's blubbering breakdown.
Unfortunately, we never really get that close to Fielding Pierce, the young aspiring politician played by Billy Crudup. The same goes for the whole romance, which the movie stresses repeatedly is a romance without making you feel that it's so. Connelly's specialty is a doe-eyed lusciousness that is quite fetching. As a reminder, he thinks he keeps seeing Sarah, the Ghost of Idealism Past, and goes a bit bonky. In short, the '80s types are Bad, the '60s types are Good, or at the very least misguided.