Heartburn
Director: Mike Nichols
Year Released: 1986
Rating: 1.5
A food writer (Meryl Streep) falls in love with a well-known reporter (Jack Nicholson) who cheats on her and she is understandably upset and humiliated - of course, this is an exercise in artistic revenge on the part of Nora Ephron (who wrote the book and script) to get back at philandering Venetian blind fucker/"Deep Throat" hider Carl Bernstein of Washington Post fame. Using cinema (or even the literary word) as a tool for vengeance is kind of tricky, and despite a rare few cute sections (I like Kevin Spacey's bit as a thief, if only because it's Kevin Spacey) this is a largely humorless, passive-aggressive attack: while I have no doubt Bernstein was truly a slimebag, there are two sides to every story. That Streep-as-Ephron would even consider taking Nicholson-as-Bernstein back in act three is beyond me, as someone forgot the old adage: once a cheat, always a cheat. The pie-in-the-face is a weak retort in a weak movie.
