Funny About Love Movie Review

Funny fact about Funny About Love: Though the box cover and poster feature Gene Wilder with a baby on his head, there's no baby in this movie. At least not until the last two minutes... and it's not even Wilder's!

In fact, people expecting another Three Men and a Baby are going to be sorely disappointed: For such a frivolous image and goofy title, this is serious stuff. Wilder plays a comic strip artist who finds he's really, really anxious to have a kid. Unfortunately, things don't quite click biologically with his new wife (Christine Lahti), and after years of trying, they call it quits -- not just on the baby, but on the marriage too.

The film shifts gears as Wilder finds himself in the arms of a younger sorority girl (Mary Stuart Masterson), only for that to not work out quite the way he'd like either. For about 100 minutes it's a deeply depressing tale of tragedy and failure, followed by what feels like a tacked-on happy ending.

Based on an article by Bob Greene about a speaking gig at a sorority girls' convention (how Jon Avnet turned this into a movie about fertility issues is beyond me) and with Leonard Nimoy in the director's chair, this is cruelty disguised as comedy filmmaking. We see this every couple of years: The Bette Midler atrocity Isn't She Great springs immediately to mind.

It's funny then that Wilder saves this movie all by his lonesome, turning in a deeply funny performance that completely transcends the morose material. He's so good that he almost makes Love watchable. Were it not for the suicidal feelings you may find yourself with at the end of the 105 minutes, gosh, this might actually be a fun time.