The Way We Were

Being a fan of Robert Redford and generally enjoying Barbara Steisand, I had heard of The Way We Were. I’d even seen the end of the film -- the part where they meet back up in New York City. But I’d never really watched the whole thing. And it was showing on Saturday night on Turner Classic Movies, so I decided to invite a couple friends over and watch the film.

The story is fairly interesting -- it's about Katie, a Jewish girl who works her way through college, and Hubbell (yes, that’s his real name), a gentile preppy with a certain sense of entitlement. Katie is a Communist and Hubbell is not, but yet during World War II they manage to fall in love despite their political differences. You see, Hubbell has written a novel -- something about the world being ice cream and melting (?) -- and it has impressed Katie. She knew that he had potential back in college, when his short story beat out hers in class -- everything came easy to him, just like his country. So Hubbell and Katie have a somewhat troubled courtship. She doesn’t approve of his friends; they are too preppy and treat everything as if it were a joke, even the death of President Roosevelt. Hubbell thinks that Katie treats everything too seriously, but they eventually end up moving to California so Hubbell can turn his fantastic novel into a script. Due to the turbulent times, Katie manages to find some trouble to get into and becomes involved with the HUAC Committee meetings on Communism in Washington D.C. Hubbell doesn’t really want her to get involved, and it essentially leads to the breakup of their marriage. They remain married until Katie has the baby, and then Hubble never sees them again. That is, until the end of the movie when Katie runs into Hubble outside of the Plaza Hotel.

Seriously, I feel like this was an interesting story and it did make me more interested in (a) learning more about the story behind the HUAC Committee meetings and Hollywood’s involvement and (b) reading the actual novel version of The Way We Were.

But otherwise, I would never seek this movie out again! I like Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. I really wanted to like their characters and I did for the first hour, but once they moved out to Hollywood, I felt like there wasn’t enough exposition to really understand why they acted the way they did. I didn’t feel like the characters were growing at all, and I just never understood their motivations to continue acting the way they did. Well, other than the fact that Katie had to remain a political person.

Barbara Streisand’s fingernails were incredibly distracting in this film! As one of my friends pointed out, there isn’t much kissing between her and Hubble, but lots of him nuzzling her neck. And her fingernails, complete with bright red nail polish (how Communist of her!), are always tangling through Hubbell’s blonde hair. It’s almost as if she has to claw him. And at the end of the movie, when Katie no longer has Hubbell, she wears gloves. The cat is sheathed and can no longer maintain her hold on him.

FILE UNDER: Classic Film