(2 of 2)
Elaine May shares with John Cassavetes a consuming affection for people, foibles and all. She is superb at discovering little incidents or bits of business that take the taint of caricature off a scene and lend it immediacy: a plump lady, a member of the first wedding party, turning her right hip ever so slightly to edge down the aisle; or Lenny, at the second wedding, grinning briefly in involuntary triumph at the minister. May does tend to stress Lenny's obtuseness, his blind selfishness, rather too much. But The Heartbreak Kid survives its faults; indeed it seems almost to defy them. ·J.C.