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The author of Heartburn was born knowing about star quality and its discontents; she is the daughter of Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron, who put funny endearments into the mouths of Tracy and Hepburn (Desk Set) and adapted Carousel for Hollywood. In Mike Nichols, Ephron fille has found the perfect director for her skewering humor. Once he invigorated cabaret comedy as half of the Nichols and May team; now he orchestrates the romantic abrasions of Nicholson-Streep and the nifty cameos of Steven Hill as Rachel's flighty dad and John Wood as a nightmare Alistair Cooke. Generous and precise, Nichols shoots many scenes in long takes, observing the characters like a decorous dinner guest. Always alert to gestural cinema, he takes his time following the tentative caress of a friend's hand on Rachel's swollen belly, or a mother's joy and responsibility as she leads her little daughter up the steps of a plane.
The novel relied on Ephron's cauterizing prose to anchor the reader; the movie's commentary is the dialogue that Streep's fine, suggestive face carries on with the viewer. Stranded in rage, this Rachel has only the camera as her therapist, and Streep will turn to it as to a friend, confiding a querulous eyebrow or subtle grimace, simultaneously inhabiting and commenting on her role. Nicholson has a tougher assignment. He is, here, only half a man, all surface and no substance, and finally he distances himself from Mark, his face going slack in a kind of moral torpor. But when he smiles at Rachel like a cat with Tweety Pie feathers on his lips or croons nonsense to his firstborn, Nicholson reveals the charm that hides the folly. You can hate Mark for his cruelty or love him for his robust grace and fine, sharp humor. Same with this movie.