THE WAY WE WERE (1973) *** Let me start with a confession. I like the theme song, a lot. I consider it one of those absolutely perfect pop songs, like Lobo's "When I Saw You Standing There," or Diana Ross' "Touch Me in the Morning." What I'm saying is that I have a much higher schmaltz threshold than most people who are even half as cool as me. Actually the song is a pretty good barometer of whether or not you'll be able to handle the film: the schmaltz is thick and heavy, and they never stop shoveling it at you. Another role that Warren Beatty turned down and Robert Redford scooped, and the stars present the best and worst of themselves: Barbra Streisand is overtly sentimental and tries too hard (both in and out of character) to the point of making a virtue of it all, and Robert Redford straddles that line between decadent individualist and establishment toadie with such virtuosity that you're almost willing to believe that he's doing both. In the worst scenes, however, and there are more than one, she's more contemptibly self-obsessed than laughable (even as she dedicates her all, she's mostly impressed with herself for doing so), and he's a cardboard cutout of a ludicrous Ivy League profile majoring in hairspray. The heart of the film is presented against a McCarthy era backdrop, but the politics are used sparingly, and have to be confusing for anyone not familiar with the history involved. I've read that this is because the studio pulled a lot of footage from the film just prior to release, and that was probably not a bad idea. We more than get the idea that it all has something to do with the dynamic tension between America's ideals and its reality, and it's not likely that they could have made a particularly insightful film on censorship and blacklisting with Babs and Sundance wanting to look at each other like that all the time. If there's any irony at all-and I don't believe that there's an artistic statement here of the magnitude to generate it-it's that both stars are variations of Redford's character; what with her singing for Bill Clinton, and him making unsolicited phone calls to tell strangers that Al Gore is an environmentalist. That being whatever it is, the principals must be defended by pointing out that the film is entitled The Way We Were, rather than "The Way We Are," or "The Way We Wish We Were." Ultimately, there's at least an argument, a strong one, that Redford's character is right: that what matters most in one life is individuals, and what they do and the way that they feel, not chasing windmills that can only be perceived as shadows. So maybe there are deeper philosophical convictions involved than anyone's willing to let on.
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