Console
best movie i've ever seen.
Taha Avalos
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
eldiran-24234
Although this film works tremendously as a love story (or rather, anti-love story, for they break up to stay authentic to their perspectives), the larger point of the film is to trace the evolution of American Thought,--'The Way WE Were'-- from a time before Total Commercialism took over. Streisand here is the Idealist who fights for the Rights of others, and Redford is the happy-go-lucky privileged guy who simply (though regrettably) wants to live an uncomplicated life of sacrifice--two different options that battled in America from the late '20's on. Here the two Ideals are attracted to each other, and though they share an admiration, are not complementary. (A point much better made if you include the tragically cut deleted scenes--see YouTube) Great Star power by the 2 leads, and some really thoughtful dialogue (especially restaurant fight scene) that raise this film far above simply 'a love story'.
ketutar
I suppose it happens between 1936 (the beginning of the Spanish war) and 1947 (Hollywood 10) when she was pregnant, and then the last scene, which supposedly happens a couple of years after their divorce, so, about 1950? No dates are given, and it's impossible to date it by the clothes (by which one would say it all happens 1973) or any other details. So... this is supposedly a "great love story", and several times it is pointed out how Katie "never gives up":Hubbell: "You never give up, do you?"
Katie: "Only when I'm absolutely forced to."Yet they marriage didn't last 3 years. We really don't know when they got married, but they met again 1945 and started their relationship there, and she got pregnant 1947, and they got divorced when the baby was born.
She basically hated everything about him, his friends, things he found interesting, what he wanted with his life. She claimed to be supportive, but all she wanted to support him to do was what SHE wanted him to do. The only thing she compromised was to move to Hollywood with him, but she claimed to be ready to give up everything just to have him in her life... and he said she didn't need to. After all, he fell in love with Katie from College. He loved her. And she continued with everything she thought was important, even protested against the McCarthy crap.
But she... she was like a starstruck bitch who just wanted to have everything her way and whined when she didn't get it. I really dislike her. And a romantic movie when you dislike the heroine? Not good. She had it all and was a spoiled bitch so she threw it all away. It wasn't even that she lost it, she threw it away. He loved her as she was, but she didn't love him as he was, and he didn't change fast enough.The "touching" end scene... nothing touching about that. Not one tear was dropped during watching of this movie. The most touching scene was the night after she picked him up from the bar. "Hubbell, it's Katie. You did know it was Katie". The movie is slow and boring... Uh. Two hours of pain. I suppose it has filmographic good sides, I mean, the music is amazing, the filming is nice... acting is good, I suppose... costuming is crap, editing is crap, script is... well. I suppose it's not that bad, because it is believable, but I hate her and it's not a love story, so... Frankly, the only reason to see this movie is for Robert Redford and he has done dozens of better movies. Just see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting".
atlasmb
The confluence of great direction (Sydney Pollack), a great script (Arthur Laurents), great acting, and great music (score and song) must necessarily result in a singular film, and "The Way We Were" is not just one of the best romances of all time. It is one of the best films of all time.Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford play two people from different worlds, different strata of society, different classes. The film covers their relationship over the years between the late 1930s and the late 1950s. They negotiate dramatic world changes and dramatic personal changes. Through it all, the question is whether or not love alone is enough to sustain a relationship. No other film answers that fundamental question better than "The Way We Were".This film contains some of my favorite cinematic lines and some of my favorite scenes. And a few of those memorable moments that make cinema such a transcendent medium.I you love a good romance--one that contains multiple levels of subtext in every scene and every look--this is the film to see.
tavm
When Marvin Hamlisch died several weeks ago, I suddenly found myself wanting to watch this movie, having never seen it before but reading and hearing about it over the years and what a classic it was. So I added it to my Netflix list of DVD's for delivery. The famous song that Hamlisch wrote with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Barbra Streisand's vocals is here but in a different version than the one I heard on the radio over the years which had a more contemporary '70s vibe than the more orchestral version played here. Such a touching and memorable song that was and hearing it in the score quite frequently in the picture made the whole thing almost perfect. I said almost because, as many of you reading this probably know, director Sydney Pollack had cut a couple of pertinent scenes that, when I watched the accompanying short doc that was also on the disc that showed these sequences, made sense why things happened at the end when they did. I mean, watching the film without them made things a little confusing but still had a bittersweet romantic effect that still gave a somewhat touching climax due to the talents of Pollack, Streisand, Hamlisch, and especially leading man Robert Redford. The whole period from the late '30s to the '50s was so fascinating to look at and Arthur Laurents' screenplay was awash in dialogue that was to die for especially between Barbra and Robert. Really, all I'll say now is The Way We Were is still something worth seeing and thinking about afterwards...
