Saturday, April 09, 2005

David Ansen

“There are those who can't resist Neil Simon and those--like this reviewer--who can. But in CALIFORNIA SUITE … I could feel my defenses crumbling….

“Perhaps--no, definitely--it was Maggie Smith and Michael Caine….”

“Nothing else in "California Suite" matches their magic, but Alan Alda and Jane Fonda, and Walter Matthau and Elaine May are formidable acting teams under any circumstances. In the most serious of the plotlets, Alda and Fonda are an estranged couple fighting over the custody of their 17-year-old daughter. He's a laid-back Hollywood screenwriter and she's a tough-as-nails NEWSWEEK editor from New York, and their confrontation takes the form of East Coast vs. West Coast put-downs. Though Fonda and Alda are fascinating to watch and Simon frequently draws satiric blood, this particular game of cultural Ping Pong is beginning to seem a little provincial and passé.”

David Ansen
Newsweek, January 8, 1979

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