Days of Wine and Roses (1963)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Unique roles for Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, usually they act in comedies but this is a solid drama. Together with Charles Bickford, they give three high-acting performances. Especially Lee Remick, she is unrecognizable as a perpetual drunkard. Simple, convincing, credible, realistic, like in real life. But again, watch out, because it's very sad, specially the ending...

Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) is a stellar public relations man in San Francisco. Much of his time is spent wining and dining clients and Jack is a party guy first class, drinking to excess. He even is ordered to find lady "escorts" for CEOs partying on a yacht. It is there that he accidentally mistakes Kirsten (Lee Remick) for one of the "invited" women. Woe to him, she's the boss' secretary. Nevertheless, he discovers two things. One, Kirsten is part of the window dressing, being very beautiful, and she does very little of the actual work. Secondly, even she can succumb to an attractive man's charms and humor, as she starts dating Joe, and hurriedly gets married to him. But, alas, Joe doesn't want to drink alone, so he introduces cocktails to his teetotaler new wife. Starting with Brandy Alexanders, which has the chocolate Kirsten loves, she suddenly, too, gets in the alcohol "game". Even the birth of their daughter, Debbie, doesn't keep the couple sober. On one of their drunken binges, Joe smashes up his father-in-laws nursery. Joe also loses his job and a few others when his drinking leads to big problems. At last, Joe has had enough and realizes he has to join AA. Kirsten refuses to go. She even goes away to distant hotels for weeks and Joe doesn't know where she is. Eventually, Joe has to make a decision, a heartbreaking one. How can he stay sober if he lets Kirsten be part of his new life? This sad, sad film has the horrors of alcoholism on full display. Especially sad is Remick's role, for she is goaded to drink and then can't stop. Yes, there are moments of humor, romance, beautiful scenery, costumes and Blake Edwards great direction. But, unless you love the stars or are in the mood for a cathartic sobfest, this movie will put you in a sobering state of mind.

I had never seen this side of Jack Lemmon before. He was a very gifted and versatile performer. In this film, Lemmon, an alcoholic, but at first fooling himself that he is just a two martini lunch businessman, meets the very sober Remick. He ends up taking her out on a date and asks if she wants a drink. Remick states that she would rather eat chocolate than drink. Lemmon tells her he has just the drink for her and mixes her up a Brandy Alexander that contains creme de cacao--basically making Remick a chocolate flavored cocktail. This is the beginning of the end for Remick.Lemmon and Remick fall in love and marry. They spend their days drinking and drinking. Lemmon's alcoholism spirals out of control and he ends up being demoted and is sent away on business. Bored, Remick's alcoholism gets worse as she fills her empty time drinking. Lemmon is later fired due to his alcoholism and spends the next few years drifting from job to job.Lemmon and Remick realize that they have a problem and try to sober up together. For awhile, they are sober and working together in Remick's father's landscaping business. That all ends later however, when Lemmon ends up destroying Remick's father's greenhouse looking for stashed booze. The scene of Lemmon crawling around on the ground in the rain is particularly sad and pathetic and shows just how bad he and Remick's problem has gotten. Lemmon ends up joining AA in an effort to sober up. Jack Klugman plays Lemmon's sponsor.Lemmon appeals to Remick to join AA with him, but she won't. She doesn't feel she has a problem and feels that she can handle it herself when she wants to. Her father later tells Lemmon that his daughter has started disappearing for long stretches of time and is even picking up strangers in bars. This is a great scene between Jack Lemmon, and, by that time, old pro Charles Bickford in a very late performance in his career.The most bittersweet moment of the film is at the very end. Remick returns to Lemmon and appeals to him to make things the way they were. Lemmon says that he doesn't want things the way they were, he wants to be sober. Remick states that she likes her life better when she's drinking than when she's not. Lemmon is essentially forced to choose between his sobriety and being with her. He lets her go and Remick walks out the door, leaving her daughter and husband behind. Their daughter, seeing her mom leaving asks her father: "Will mommy ever get well?" Lemmon responds "I did, didn't I?" He looks out the window to watch Remick walk down the street - right toward a lit neon "Bar" sign.This film was so tragic and so sad, but it was also very compelling. Lemmon and Remick did an excellent job portraying two alcoholics and I liked that the film ended on a somewhat uncertain note. It seems that Lemmon will be okay, but what will become of Remick? Based on her actions in the film, things don't look rosy for her. You get the feeling that drinking is helping her hide from the fact that she IS an alcoholic, and the buzz helps her forget.

A very uneven film about the horrors of alcoholism. The problem seems to be Blake Edwards' and Jack Lemmon's penchant for comedy. The story, at its base, is pure tragedy, but it's like Edwards doesn't want it to be too dark, so he cast a clown in the lead. Lemmon sparkles during the scenes where he's supposed to be charming, but he's not very convincing during the more dramatic sequences. Oh, and he can't do a drunk act worth a damn. I guess that's the film's biggest problem, really. No one in the classic era could play a convincing drunk. They always seem to overact terribly, and Lemmon in particular is bad at it. His co-star, Lee Remick, isn't quite as bad, but during her big drunk scene she comes off as not that good, either. In fact, she's pretty bad at it, but does seem fairly excellent in comparison with Lemmon. Remick is actually very good in the non-drunk scenes. The biggest flop of the film is the big, dramatic sequence where, after having been dry for a while at Remick's father's farm, Lemmon sneaks in a couple of bottles which they share. Cut to Lemmon jumping up and down on the bed with the two of them giggling like school children. That's the film's idea of alcoholics: they get goofy like kids and then throw tantrums like kids when they finish up their booze. Jesus, Lemmon's scene in the greenhouse, where he's tearing it to shreds trying to find a bottle he hid and freaking out, it's just embarrassing. Contrast that with the film's final sequence. You can see just how good the film could have been if it didn't go so over-the-top. The ending of the movie is heartbreaking.