Funny About Love

Plot synopsis:
New York cartoonist Duffy Bergman marries gourmet chef Meg Lloyd. 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 a Delta 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.

Tags: dark

Review:
Funny How Love Isn't Funny In This Movie.
Cartoonist Gene Wilder's marriage to Christine Lahti falls apart after they fail to conceive a child, but they manage to get back together after Gene has lots of sex with a younger woman.
Love might be funny, but this film is something else entirely.
Sure, there are a few laughs, but not enough to make this poorly-structured, badly-directed film work.
it's about time for Leonard Nimoy to ask Scotty to beam him up.
One of my favorite Gene Wilder films.
Gene Wilder is so lovable in this movie that it will make you forget some of his sillier films.In this he plays Duffy Berman a well-known cartoonist who yearns to have a child before his 'biological clock' stops ticking.So when things don't go as he planned,his life is turned upside down with some very funny and tender moments.
Gene Wilder struggles manfully to keep this limp, occasionally lame comedy afloat, but he's quickly defeated by unsure Leonard Nimoy direction, shabby editing and writing.
A professional cartoonist falls for an attractive female chef (she can't be much of a chef since his first impression of her food is disgust); after meeting cute, they decide to marry, but frustration soon arrives over their failure to conceive a child.
Christine Lahti has a warm, ticklish presence, but her character here is so underwritten we're not sure how we're supposed to feel about her; Mary Stuart Masterson is much better as a fraternity sex-bunny, but she belongs in a different movie (with a different partner) altogether.
I have watched this movie few times by now...such a sweet rendition of how real love feels...it's about real emotions, real feelings...and funny on top of it all!
I love watching it cause it makes me laugh and cry at the same time!
The way Gene Wilder expresses love and heartache is just overwhelming!
It is truly a movie about life and the sweetest thing about it...with a twist of humour...which is most definitely the way we should all treat life!
Friend Leonard Nimoy directed Gene Wilder in his 1990 film, Funny About Love.
Also starring Christine Lahti and Mary Stuart Masterson, this romantic comedy showed the struggle of the human need to reproduce and the struggles that come with infertility.
Funny About Love is nothing spectacular but goes the distance in describing a difficulty felt by 1 in every 8 couples with some humor.
Human life is full of decisions, just as it is changing our minds about those decisions, Funny About Love shows this inextricable part of human life through one New York City couple.
Duffy Bergman (Gene Wilder) is on top of the world in his field as a renowned political cartoonist.
When he is taken to her, he is instantly smitten with her beauty and attempts to get Meg (Christine Lahti) to agree to a date with him.
Although initially reluctant, Meg is eventually won over by Duffy's lighthearted comedic disposition and agrees.
The two eventually marry and decide, in spite of Duffy's reservations to have a child together.
As Meg's culinary career kicks into overdrive during the respite from attempting to have a child, Duffy begins to actually want to have a baby.
This time, it is Meg that is unsure and wants to wait to have a baby.
In their time apart, they both realize what they really want; but can they get what it is they want with each other?Gene Wilder plays the quirky jokester of a cartoonist well, and Christine Lahti plays his lighthearted wife well.
The two share a beautiful on-screen chemistry making the otherwise forgettable film more fun to watch.
The writing struggles through the entire film, being very abrupt in all the right places.
I can't understand how Gene Wilder was in this film.
Okay, so it might not be Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother, but this film has tons of charm (Lahti is fantastic, as is Wilder), some strange little twists, and reassuring laughs.Watch it on a Sunday;-).
i loved this movie!.
i loved this movie!.
this movie is funny, heartwarming, romantic and witty.
Someone earlier said that Gene Wilder and Christine Lahti had no chemistry, but i have to disagree on that subject.
this movie is a slice of life comedy, not a goof ball one like "blazing saddles or " Young Frakenstein".
everyone else here doesn't know a good movie when they see one.
so go ahead and watch your stupid movies while i sit back and enjoy "funny about love".
They cannot conceive a child, which Duffy clearly feels he needs at this point in his life.
He tries for someone younger (Masterson), but it becomes frighteningly apparent that perhaps it wasn't Meg or Daphne with the conception issues, but Duffy himself.On a side-note, Duffy's a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to relationships, as he lambastes his own father who decides not long after his wife's death, to get married again.
Duffy has no problem moving on from Meg, but has distinct thoughts of how his father's life should progress.
(Namely the loss of his mother and the acceptance of the fact that he and Meg will never have a child.) Is this one of the classics of all time?
This two different films squished together, by Leonard Nimoy.
It is the only thing that I have seen Christine Lahti in that failed to entertain me.
Mary Stuart Masterson was cute and Lahti was her usual beautiful self but nothing could save this disaster.
This is the film Wilder made right after the death of his beloved soulmate, Gilda Radner.
Several years after directing "Funny About Love", director Leonard Nimoy admitted that making this movie was a mistake, and put the blame on the script.
The writing found in this movie is truly bizarre at times.
For example, when Wilder's character and his wife have their first argument, in the next scene she is packing her bags and planning divorce - huh?
I don't know if that's how it was written, or if the editing removed some scenes, but the movie is missing important information.While most of the blame is with the script (and possibly with the editing), Nimoy has to share some blame for the performances of his actors.
More often than not, Nimoy has his cast acting in a very broad manner that makes the deranged dialogue they speak even worse-sounding.As I indicated in the summary line, this movie is more strange than funny..
While certainly not one of anyone's favorite comedies, there is an amount of sweetness to this film.
Gene Wilder is an "edgy" cartoon strip writer - though as the viewer you're rolling your eyes as a conservative or a liberal - that becomes very desirous of having a baby with his new wife, Christine Lahti.
When things don't biologically work out, they break up and Wilder finds himself in a relationship with Mary Stuart Masterson.
Eventually, that doesn't work out either and Wilder realizes that Lahti means more to him as a wife than what a baby can bring to their relationship.
The cons are evident in the film - simplistic story, no real depth of any character, no "laugh out loud" scene, no dewy-eyed scene.
Firstly, Wilder is pitch perfect as usual - completely at ease in his character.
Masterson - such a beautiful and amazingly talented actress - is wonderful in her strong-willed yet completely vulnerable character.
Finally, Nimoy must be given credit for the pacing of the movie by keeping the scenes quick and fun.
While the movie is long on relationships, it is short on character and development thereof.
The easy-come-easy-go of the Wilder/Lahti, Wilder/Masterson relationships simply demand the viewer to not only accept but understand.
On the morning of March 26, 1989, I happened to see a film crew working in the park as I approached the train station.
I asked a crew man, "What project are you working on?" He answered, "New York Times"--which was the working title for the movie.
and if Mr. Nimoy wondered how a passerby knew (a) that it happened to be his birthday and (b) that he was the director of the movie in production!
Since Mr. Wilder plays a cartoonist in the film I suggested the title "See You in the Funny Pages" but, of course, it wasn't used.
I've seen the movie and tried to spot a scene filmed at Central Park but I didn't see it..
stinker!!Every second of turgid dialogue tells you you've come to the wrong place today and you need to get out!It would be illegal to show this film in a prison.
The comedy touch of a true vulcan.no no no It's a 2 thirds of a film that will live in infamy burned into the section of my memory reserved for live electric cables and picking up glowing bits of metal.
I don't liked this film.
I am big fan of Gene Wilder and i try to collect all his films.This movie was disappointment to me.It is a movie where actors live in their own world and i feel like they forgotten people who watching the film.They live there with their problems and they don't have time to think is it a interesting to watch.At the beginning of the movie it made to easy when Gene and Cristine met.Gene saying that coffee is good but he don't look like his fooling in love deeply.It all is to easy.Always is interesting when something happens what you don't expected put in this movie there is no surprises.His films usually contain more action,running and some riddles.In this film he is most of the time in his home and dialogs with his wife are not interesting.In Silver Streak you can feel the love between him and girl but not in this movie.It is only my opinion about this movie and i hope that Gene never read this..
I like Gene Wilder but I have no idea what was going through his head when he decided to do this flick.
Even the anal-injection scene didn't save it, nor did Gene Wilder's witty frying pantheon bit.
I couldn't see anything funny about this film, although I DID like the sex scenes between Gene Wilder & Mary Stuart Masterson.
Funny About Love (1990) BOMB (out of 4)Duffy Bergman (Gene Wilder) is a cartoonist who has pretty much lived his life alone just the way he likes it.
This all changes when he meets Meg (Christine Lahti) and quickly falls in love.
The two are married and plan on having a kid but that proves to be complicated, which leads to a series of dramatic events.FUNNY ABOUT LOVE is a film that I've heard a lot about and none of it was good.
This film was directed by Leonard Nimoy and it features a terrific cast but everything just goes horrendously wrong and in the end its clearly one of the worst films of the decade if not one of the worst comedies of all time.The film apparently had an entire subplot that was cut out of the film, which had Farrah Fawcett as a love interest.
It's pretty clear to see that something is missing from the film as the entire movie just feels like bits and pieces are missing.
The movie will be going in one direction and the next thing you know something complete different is going on.
I was a little confused at what the movie was trying to do, trying to say and I was wondering if the filmmakers knew what was going on.The film starts off as a romantic comedy and then out of nowhere we get some of the most out-of-touch drama I've ever seen.
Throughout the film there are strange bits of dialogue, a really bizarre subplot dealing with Wilder and a much younger woman (Mary Stuart Masterson) and then there's the ending, which is just downright embarrassing.
The entire movie was just so poorly made and so poorly written that you couldn't help but feel a bit depressed watching it.Normally Wilder could make just about anything work but that's not the case here.
Lahti tries to do what she can but her character isn't given any favors.
Out of the cast it would be Mary Stuart Masterson who comes off the best but that's not saying too much.
It makes you wonder what Fawcett would have done in the film.FUNNY ABOUT LOVE is a romantic comedy that has no laugh and certainly no romance.
I really don't know what went so horribly wrong with this movie but it's certainly a misfire from the word go..
I have never before seen a worse movie.
This is at the TOP of my list of "worst movies of all time."  I'm surprised that MST3K didn't find a way to improve it!.
There is nothing quite so painful as a comedy that isn't, and unfortunately Gene Wilder is is making more and more of them.
Normally both Wilder and Christine Lahti are talented performers, but this script would win awards for boring.
Not only that, but Lahti and Wilder have no chemistry at all, and it just gets worse when Mary Stuart Masterson is brought into the picture.This is one of those "slice of life" 80's pictures that resemble nothing more than a bad Lifetime TV movie.
Wilder's reactions run the gamut from unrealistic to inappropriate; when he's consoling Masterson in their break-up scene, it's like a father with a daughter, which (quite frankly) I found exceedingly creepy.
The relationship with Lahti falls apart realistically enough, but with no humor, wit, or even insight possible as Lahti plays it straight and Wilder plays it far too broadly, even for a comedy.** SPOILERS **When he and Lahti get back together at the end, it's all rushed together, complete with an adopted baby coming out of nowhere, and with Lahti's lipstick still damp on Wilder's lips from their first kiss, she introduces Wilder and baby to a restaurantful of strangers as her family.
For that matter, the way his mother dies (and how flip Wilder is about it throughout the rest of the movie) conflicts terribly with the way he treats his father when he starts dating again.
Nothing in this movie makes any sense or bears any resemblance to human interaction.In short, no subtlety, no humor, no great or even good performances (none bad either, except the inexplicable Susan Ruttan, doing her autistic impression once again), no connection to reality whatsoever.
Let's hope that Wilder hooks up with Mel Brooks and they both turn out something that makes us forget their work from the last fifteen years or so..
I completely agree with the majority of comments already posted here; this is a very bad movie in every possible way, but I'll skip past the shockingly subpar directing since it's not the worst aspect of the production.
(Spock, after all, helmed the best STAR TREK movie I've seen.
Okay, THE VOYAGE HOME is the *only* STAR TREK movie I've seen, but it remains the highest-grosser in the series, which must mean Trekkies approved of it.)*SPOILERS*Let's instead consider the writing.
The oddest thing about FAL is that nobody seems to notice that Gene Wilder's character is a deranged nutcase.
Here's a guy who contorts his face during every conversation; makes tasteless, inappropriate, glib comments about his mother shortly after her death; cradles his girlfriend in his arms like a child with a scraped knee; and, during perhaps the strangest scene in a movie chock-full of them (this one at a fertility clinic), has apparently never masturbated before and hasn't a clue as to how to do it now.
Christine Lahti falls for this nutball for no reason outside their shared previous failed marriages.
Doesn't anyone wait until marriage before sharing a bed anymore?) She just as quickly dumps the guy, for the unpardonable sin of really, really wanting a child.
These neurotics clearly deserve each other, if for no other reason than to keep these freaks out of the dating pool.The pixieish Mary Stuart Masterson also resembles a humanoid.
In it, Wilder barges into Lahti's restaurant proclaiming his newfound outlook on having a child.
Check, please.FUNNY ABOUT LOVE is an total embarrassment from beginning to end for everyone involved, especially Wilder.
There is no reason for it to be seen other than as a study of abnormal human behavior.p.s. If Gene was still mourning Gilda's death, why did he agree to star in a "romantic" "comedy"?
When Duffy Bergman meets Meg Lloyd, he discovers the love of his life and they marry, but love alone isn't enough to make them happy.
Meg decides she wants to have a baby, initially making Duffy frantic, but soon becomes his most important desire as well.
Now Duffy must decide which is more valuable to him, the relationship he has given up, or the relationship he has always dreamt of having...It's an unmitigated disaster, but Wilder is always watchable and there are flashes of geniuses in his withered,pained face.Nimoy is perfunctory at making family movies, but this has been edited within an inch of its life, and it really shows when Masterson is introduced.
It's another one of those movies where Wilder gets the beautiful woman, which is a bit hard to swallow, but it's an easy, if predictable watch.It's just very incoherent at times..
Probably the worst movie ever made.
This is the worst movie I have ever seen and it's a real tragedy that it was ever allowed to be released.
If only someone could go back in time and prevent it from being filmed.The story is very boring and every single scene just feels disturbing and unrealistic.Mary Stuart Mastersson is one of the best actresses of all time and it's a real pain to see her be disgraced in this film.
Her character Daphne falls in love with Duffy, a very disturbed elderly man played by Gene Wilder.Don't ever see this film, and don't see any other films with Gene Wilder either.