Blume in Love

Plot

Stephen Blume (Segal), a Beverly Hills divorce lawyer, tries to regain the wife (Anspach) who has divorced him.

Wandering around Venice, Italy, where they first honeymooned, Blume wonders what possessed him to betray Nina, a woman he loves, by having sex with his secretary in the bed he and Nina share at home.

Nina promptly leaves him and sets about a journey of self-discovery, trying new things like yoga and taking up with a man 12 years her junior, Elmo (Kristofferson), an unemployed musician. Blume goes to great lengths to win Nina back, complicated by the fact that he finds Elmo to be quite a nice guy.

Critical reception

The movie was nominated for a Writers Guild of America (WGA) award in the category of "Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen."

Roger Ebert in his June 18, 1973 review in the Chicago Sun-Times gave this film four stars on a scale of four. Vincent Canby of the New York Times described it on the same date as "a restless, appealing, sometimes highly comic contemporary memoir."

In an interview with Robert K. Elder for his book The Best Film You've Never Seen, director Neil LaBute explains his feelings on the film: “I was both intrigued and frustrated by what was happening. There’s this fractured telling of the story, several trips to Venice and the rest takes place in Venice, California. So, I think there was attraction to it by the frustration of it—like, ‘What’s happening here? What’s the story?’"

Cast

Soundtrack

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