Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994 TAG: 9403150176
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Yes, Hepburn's head bobs and her voice is quivery. She is 84 (some sources say 86) and looks it, but there is no shame in looking it and there is glory in being it. The actress is hardly cast against type: She plays an aging retired movie star named Marion Bennett who was known for being outspoken and wearing slacks in her youth and who once made a Western with John Wayne (Hepburn co-starred with Wayne in ``Rooster Cogburn'').
Bennett is flinty, feisty and salty, exactly the qualities we associate with Hepburn. Some of the dialogue, by Duane Poole, sounds as though Hepburn could have written it herself. ``Never rely on anyone else to make you happy,'' she lectures a young woman. ``Marriage is for fools.'' A little later she tells her assistant, ``I never go out in public. It's a damn nuisance. I feel like a national monument on tour.''
Hepburn pokes a little fun at herself with the film. Quinn has an even grander time as Michael Reyman, a washed-up actor who was once one of Bennett's lovers. Now he makes a sudden and temporarily unexplained reappearance in her life, giving them both the chance to argue and bicker and carp about each other. Quinn's robust energy seems to reinvigorate Hepburn, prodding her into a livelier, zestier performance than she has had in years.
Bennett and Reyman were lovers, it seems, but they were highly combative lovers. Prior to their meeting, Reyman is dreading the reunion. ``She taught Patton everything he knew,'' Reyman scowls to an aide. ``She broke my nose once with a well-aimed billiard ball.'' He derides her as ``a hellcat,'' ``a harpy'' and ``a praying mantis.'' Obviously they were madly in love.
It's been fifty years since they last met and they have a lot of catching up to do--most of it amusingly contentious. Here and there, Poole slips in a nifty zinger, as when Quinn says of a cocktail, ``My first real drink since the Nixon years'' and Hepburn replies, ``Everybody drank then. They had to, of course.'' Eventually the two of them stop raking over old coals long enough to stir a few embers. Bennett's carefully maintained defenses begin to crumble during a night on the town.
Soon it's like old times. ``I feel 70 again,'' she declares.
While the elders remember their past affair, a young couple embarks on a new one. Jami Gertz plays Sarah, who claims to be Reyman's granddaughter and who finds herself falling in a big way for Jason Bateman as Grant, a young man who works for Bennett as driver and errand boy. Gertz comes across as less cold and predatory than in past roles and Bateman finally seems to be graduating from sitcom acting into real acting.
They are both charming but the fact is, one can't wait for their scenes to end so we can get back to the happy hamming of Hepburn and Quinn. They are magnificent together, and they turn a routine romantic comedy into something genuinely special. The title is a bit odd, considering that the Rodgers and Hart song of the same name is never sung (guest star Michael Feinstein sings ``You Made Me Love You'' instead), but that's a minor quibble.
Hepburn not only has delicious scenes with Quinn, but she also has a droll conversation with a horse and a funny encounter with two jailed hookers.
Making an exit every bit as spectacular as his entrance, Quinn as Reyman gives some parting advice to young Sarah. ``Take your work seriously, but take your fun seriously, too,'' he says. ``This Can't Be Love'' is a splendid example of serious fun.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB