A New Leaf (1971)

Great Film overall

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Plot-- Having neither money nor feelings, an aging wastrel better figure out how to get money quickly or he's in big trouble. Thanks to his quick thinking manservant, he looks to marry a rich woman. Soon he settles on a lonely, inept young woman who specializes in both botany and ruining rugs. So what will happen now.Well, I guess the movie's a comedy thanks mainly to May's touchingly clumsy funny girl. Still, it's a hard movie to get a handle on. Matthau's coldly calculating fortune hunter hardly cracks a smile the whole time, even in social situations. Between the two, they're hardly a promising comedy mix. Yet, the mix works even as Graham (Matthau) pores over a poisoning book on his wedding night, while poor Lowell (May) can't even get her gown on straight. No, the movie may not be a knee-slapper, but it is unusually charming in its own way. In fact, May manages to make her character one of the most uniquely winning that I've had the good luck to see. Then too, casting the familiar faces of Coco and Weston conveys a hint of tongue in cheek even as they play a couple of mean guys.The ending is appropriate as the movie's title suggests. At the same time we can't be sure what the emotionally destitute Graham will do. After all, he wants status, but without the responsibilities.Apparently, May was the creative hand (writer and director) behind this unusual comedy-drama. Too bad she was also behind the monumental flop Ishtar which appears to have slowed her promising movie career. No, the movie may not be a knee-slapper, but it is humorously different. Thanks to May, we're left with a memorable portrayal that I'll think of every time I check the carbon on my car's cylinders.

Elaine May's directorial debut may be a disappointment but it's a noble disappointment: there's no question that May found herself working in then-uncharted territory, trying to find a naturalistic, semi-improvisational comedic style not generally seen in films of the period. Clearly her influence can be found in the works of masters like Albert Brooks (especially in the use of long takes) and the urbane Woody Allen that would emerge with "Annie Hall". But that doesn't solve the problem of "A New Leaf", which meanders along at its own fitful pace and with May's interests kept pretty much private; she doesn't seem to want to let the audience in on her inner workings and what's important to her never really translates to the viewer. Walter Matthau plays a roué who finds himself suddenly broke and must find a wealthy wife in order to settle his debts, finding her in May's naive, clumsy spinster. May's screenplay, her first, never allows her characters to come alive: Matthau hides behind a wall of continual indignation and May, with her staring and stammering, just isn't that funny; the two are played too broadly to connect with each other, let alone the audience. As an artist, May knows what she wants but struggles to develop it and the darkness she hints at (Matthau constantly contemplates murder) doesn't become a plot point until the end and then becomes an unwanted pathos. (That darkness would later find fuller expression in "Mikey And Nicky".) While it's apparent that her approach to comedy is a new one, here she hasn't yet developed the chops that would make "A New Leaf" work.

The film is unusual, but just as perfect as it happens infrequently, where it all is OK: the choice of the two lead actors (Elaine May and Walter Matthau) and Supporting Roles, all authentic masks comedy (take for example the butler, his uncle, the lawyer, the governed and the driver), the originality of the story, the pace, the direction, scenes mothers and those of the boundary, the grand finish. In short, a film by see again and again without wanting to change anything. The credit is especially of Elaine May, exquisite clumsy on the film, but in actually the author of the delicate and grotesque screenplay, as well as director. A film unfortunately little known and appreciated, the same May has sometimes denied. A little gem to be rediscovered.

For some of us, the only recent recording of this film came from either TCM or PBS (can't remember which), wherein the sound sync was off kilter. Also, some images were fuzzy. The print shown on SHO(W)is crisp and in sync. That has to do for those of us who await a DVD with Ms. May's comments -- we hope.This is a drolly funny film with great location shots in New York City, parts of Long Island, NY as well as Maine. The line that will live forever for me is this: "And she has to be vacuumed every time she eats!" What a gem of a film.