Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.
Every week I get a little bit nearer completing the massive list of Oscar movies, or completing the list as much as I ever will. Today is noteworthy in one important respect: A Little Romance is the final movie I needed to watch from the 1970s. I’m officially done with every movie from 1970 through 1986. It’s strange to be done with a decade, but it also feels like a long, slow exhale. I could have only wished for a movie I ended up liking a little more than this one. In truth, I liked this ultimately in spite of itself.
It is at the very least aptly named. Our romance here is between 13-year-olds, and while it is something reads very much like an idealized romance between kids, it’s also pretty chaste (as it should be, honestly). It’s also going to take us a long time (roughly half the movie) to get where we’re going. The quick and dirty is that Lauren (Diane Lane in her first role), an American living in France and Daniel (the awesomely-named Thelonious Bernard) meet cute and fall for each other. In their outings, they run into Julius (Laurence Olivier), who takes a shine to them both and tells them stories, including a legend that a couple who kiss in a gondola under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice while the bells are ringing will be forever in love. When Lauren’s mother (Sally Kellerman) decides that Daniel is a bad influence, Lauren and Daniel decide to run away to Venice with Julius’s help, which naturally leads to the authorities believing Julius has kidnapped the kids. And all of this happens because Lauren’s step-father has decided to move back to the States.
