Monday, December 19, 2022

Micki and Maude (1984)

  This movie is gross.  It should absolutely be consigned to the trash heap of history.

Reporter Rob Salinger (Dudley Moore) wants a baby in the worst way but his high-powered wife, Micki (Ann Reinking), just got an appointment to the state Superior Court as a judge and doesn't want to put her career on hold.  So Rob begins an affair with a cellist, Maude (Amy Irving), who becomes pregnant.  Rob tells her he'll leave his wife, but then finds out Micki is also pregnant.  So he lies to both women, marries Maude in a bigamist union, and attempts to be husband to both.  

This is the kind of lazy, reductionist crap that was probably supposed to appear progressive.  Like, "look, this man wants to be a caregiver!  Wacky!"  It does not hold up to modern scrutiny, obviously, but it doesn't really even hold up by the standards of its time.  This was not a new or original concept in 1984.  Hell, it wasn't even new in the 1940s.  Look at His Girl Friday.  Almost anything with Cary Grant, really.

The only way you could remake this as a comedy today is if you made it clear that Rob was the villain, a bumblefuck of a man trying to scam two women.  But this movie doesn't deserve a redemption arc. It does feature the American film debut of André the Giant (he was Dagoth the fish god in Conan the Destroyer but was not credited as such) but that's not enough of a reason to watch it.  Just watch The Princess Bride for the 1000th time instead.  Micki and Maude is streaming on Tubi.

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