Love Hurts ** (1990, Jeff Daniels, Cynthia Sikes, Judith Ivey, John Mahoney, Cloris Leachman) – Classic Movie Review 7018

Director Bud Yorkin’s gentle and pleasant 1990 comedy about the vagaries of human relationships amuses enough, but it is lacking in sufficient sharpness and wit to engross fully. Jeff Daniels stars as ex-baseball-playing womanizer Paul Weaver who attends his sister’s wedding back home in Pennsylvania and is confronted with the wife Nancy (Cynthia Sikes) and two children he left behind as the past catches up with him.

The low-key playing by the endearing Daniels’s helps to keep it truthful, steering it away from being an easy sitcom, while the always welcome Cloris Leachman and John Mahoney enjoy themselves extravagantly as Daniels’s crazy ma and Boomer.

Also in the cast are Judith Ivey, Amy Wright, Mary Griffin, Buddy Quaid, Thomas Allen, Jo Livingston, Annabelle Weenick, Matthew Carlton, Eve Smith, Jack Willis, Peter Van Norden, Adrian Ricard, Jodi Faith Cahn, Daren Kelly, Sam Stoneburner and Geraldine Court.

Love Hurts is directed by Bud Yorkin, runs 115 minutes, is made by Love Hurts Production, is released by Vestron, is written by Ron Nyswaner, is shot by Adam Greenberg, is produced by Bud Yorkin and Doro Bachrach, is scored by Frank DeCaro and is designed by Armin Ganz.

It is Yorkin’s last film as director. He died of natural causes on 18 August 2015 at 89. He was married to Cynthia Sikes.

It is released on DVD by Lions Gate.

Jonathan Demme wanted to film it with Nick Nolte but couldn’t get the backing.

John Mahoney plays Boomer.

RIP John Mahoney who died on 4 February 2018, aged 77.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7018

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