The Way We Were – 3.5 stars

Redford: “I don’t think we’re going to make it, Katie.”
Close up on the incandescent Katie (Barbra Streisand).

So, I caught this the other day and at 57 years of age, I know I have seen parts, but can’t remember if I ever saw the entire picture. There’s something nifty about a competent, charming old Hollywood love story with two big beautiful stars. I forgot how vibrant and carnal Streisand is and what a huge imprint she makes. Robert Redford mostly stays out of her way (as she says of his book, Hubbell “stands back”) and looks magnificent in a Navy uniform or a tennis outfit.

You know these two cannot exist outside of her apartment, but watching them try to cram their dissonant personalities into Hubbell’s pre-existing society life is excruciating, as is Katy’s need to control him. Streisand is so destructive whenever she is with Hubbell’s WASPy friends, her insecurity can’t be masked. But you root for her. Knowing. As if you’re rooting for the Hindenburg.

After they come out together as a couple, the Protestant golden boy and the radical Jew, Redford upbraids her after a public tantrum at a cocktail party: “Whenever something happens, it doesn’t happen to you personally!” He is met immediately by her desire to be alone with him, to get him out of there. Because Katie feels she is undeserving of someone like Hubbell, she can only feel equal and worthy as his sole companion, lover and tutor. She knows she’s the oddball, and she’ll always be the oddball, and her hurt resonates.

The film gets a little contrived when they leave college and their love nest in World War II-era New York City and move to Hollywood, and then, slow and clunky.  They jam in a baby that is quickly dispensed with and then, the final scene, where the divorced Redford and Streisand reunite on the streets of New York (talk of their daughter is short; one suspects Hubbell may have gotten out of paying child support).

But it’s a sweet movie.

Side note: my oldest friend Larry caught me singing the title song and razzed me unmercifully for singing, “Memories, like the corners of my eye.”