leethomas-11621 One of the screen's greatest romantic films. But it could have been a whole lot better. The scenes with Streisand and Redford together are lovely. Best when there is a tinge of wistful nostalgia and sadness in the plot. Unusual to have an intelligent romance in a film, as well as literary characters. But the political narrative is not handled well and becomes muddled. Maybe that and the Hollywood part of the plot could have been better directed. Beautiful score and title song won Oscars. Laurents could have won one for the screenplay too if it had been treated differently. Streisand and Redford are perfectly cast and are at their best. I love how marriage and divorce are never mentioned specifically. We never see the child and Hubbell's new wife (whose name we are not told) is all but invisible in her scene. I suppose this is to keep the plot as true as possible to its origin as a gay love story (before same sex marriage and adoption rights were legal).

tony-ritchie-965-605112 I re-watched the Way We Were last night and came away with these thoughts. It is visually a very well made movie and Redford and Streisand are both very good and have great on screen chemistry. It is at the end of the day a good love story. However the story is very uneven. I felt the second half of the movie was not nearly as good as the first. Some of the motivations for Katie and Hubell didn't always make sense and seem to be over done. Hubell no really wanting to see his baby or have anything to do with it at the end painted him to be a little bit of a jerk which is not the best way to end it.

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".

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...