Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Sadly Over-hyped

How sad is this?

Admirable film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Diane Keaton is excellent, playing the protagonist Theresa Dunn, a teacher who loves having casual sex and taking drugs. She hooks up with a variety of men, some of them dangerous.This film is based on a novel about a real-life NYC teacher, Roseann Quinn.

Excellent film.SOME SPOILERS****** Dated because of the 70s coke & disco scene & women more newly experienced free sexuality, but still relevant. It's an emotional wallop of a film. I don't understand those who castigate it as a moralistic tale- it's the telling of a true story so this is non- fiction, people. This is mostly what happened. If you are a heroin addict, you might OD. If a woman takes home strangers, she may pay the consequence. Just fact, no fiction. And those who see it as a woman's punishment for her sexual freedom I think missed the boat here- Theresa THINKS she is being free to be herself by her going against everything her parents taught her, but in fact, she is just desperate, isolated and self- destructive. Deluding herself into believing that she is exercising individuality but embarking on a descent that's deeper and deeper with each humiliation, each meaningless, lonely night. Her work can't fulfill the void left by her physical and emotional scars. Just like her sister, she couldn't stand a man who actually really liked her or loved her. She needed rejection, humiliation, and abuse to validate her own feelings of not being worthy of it. She was not a strong heroine who used her sexuality for pleasure for herself and left a wake of men in the dust- she was the dust. The book is clearer on that than the movie. Keaton is spot on- can't imagine anyone else embodying the qualities of fragility and vulnerability yet making us feel contempt for her often at the same time. She's a top caliber actor. Everyone is wonderful in this film. And the ending- well, you just can't shake it. It's heart-stopping, literally. Berenger I believe said he had nightmares after himself. It is absolutely one of the most unforgettable endings in film. Leaves you slack- jawed in its horror.And the fact that its a true story, all the more.

I saw "Mr. Goodbar" at a film festival screening, several years after it's initial release. In some ways (none of them good), this movie has haunted me ever since. I can still recall feeling strangely perturbed and confused as the film neared it's final minutes. I guess I expected that the ending would somehow magically bring the preceding grimy and occasionally chaotic events into some sort of focus.All I got from that ending was a brutal stomach ache similar to the lingering pain induced by a cheap sucker punch to the gut. I will readily admit to having gained no further understanding or insight into this film over the years. I still can't imagine why anyone would make a film like this, or what possible value or entertainment viewers derived from it.For me, Diane Keaton's performance is the only thing in the movie that keeps it from getting the lowest vote. That she managed to project some warmth and humanity from such a crudely drawn, relentlessly sad, and gratuitously self-destructive character, only made the ending that much more horrific and senseless. It's easily one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a movie theater.

Probably the biggest problem with this movie – other than its insistence that all men are either worthless sexual predators or pathetic, near-impotent panderers – is the fact that it has aged so badly. In an age when a small army of women under 30 seem hell-bent on doing all they can to turn their livers and septums to mush in as short a time as possible, Diane Keaton's Theresa Dunn no longer comes across as somebody out of the ordinary.Diane Keaton gives a performance that is by turns both sensitive and irritating as her character revolves around her schizophrenic lifestyle. As a child, Dunn was encased in plaster, a result of scoliosis, and it seems that this is what compels her to take so many risks in her effort to find the kind of freedom she was denied as a kid – both by her spell in traction and by a harsh, overbearing Catholic upbringing. She is full of love, as indicated by her relationship with the deaf children she teaches, but gives it in all the wrong ways, leading to encounters with equally warped characters. One of these is Richard Gere in the role that first brought him to Hollywood's attention and which serves as a kind of template for the role of Jesse in Jim McBride's ill-fated remake of Breathless. The other is Tom Berenger, a borderline psychopath tortured by his own homosexuality. Both are characters no right-thinking adult would want to get involved with, but Keaton's self-destructive personality draws her to them, and while you want her to break free from her sleazy night-life a part of you can't help thinking she's going to get what she deserves.The problem with Dunn is that she engages the viewers' sympathy in her straight persona then keeps pushing them away with her self-indulgent excesses and sometimes callous treatment of those who love her most. Combined with the relentlessly depressing atmosphere of impending tragedy that hangs over the entire film, this makes Looking for Mr. Goodbar a difficult film to enjoy (or even watch) and one to which many people wouldn't wish to return.