After I found
Real Life so brilliant, layered and prescient that I scuttled my planned review entirely so I could revisit it first, I insisted on jotting down some thoughts for Albert Brooks' next film,
Modern Romance. This proved to be something of a mistake, perhaps, as Brooks' second film has even more human brilliance within its cynical narrative than his previous work of genius. The title of
Modern Romance, like that of
Real Life, is at once to-the-point and subversively ironic, much like Brooks' brand of humor. It is also a slyly ambitious name, aspiring to serve as a summarizing overview of the status of something as important as the current state of love in society. With Brooks at the wheel, the film earns its title.
Brooks continues to cast himself as someone who works within the filmmaking industry, only this time he's not a hotshot director but an editor-for-hire named Robert Cole. This occupation proves critical, as he spends his days recontextualizing films by deleting obvious lines and adding in perspective-altering cutaways. In his romantic life, however, Bob is ruled by narrow preconceptions fueled by jealousy, and for someone who surely knows about the Kuleshov Effect, he rarely stops to consider that every shred of ostensible evidence he uses to accuse his girlfriend of something has less objective meaning than subjective belief.
