mnpollio Either the producers behind Used People are incredible salespeople or there was once something in this screenplay which attracted the amazing cast that proliferates this film. Unfortunately, whatever charm may once have been inherent in the story fails to make its way to the screen in the end product.The story centers on a NYC Jewish matriarch Shirley MacLaine, who is taken aback following her husband's funeral when Italian charmer Marcello Mastroianni introduces himself as a friend of the deceased who has loved her from afar for years. Around this rather astounding declaration, MacLaine and Mastroianni's extended family spins in their own assorted subplots. MacLaine has two daughters - Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden - with whom she has embattled relationships with. Her young grandson, convinced that the spirit of his grandfather is protecting him, runs about doing one dangerous stunt after another. Meanwhile, her mother Jessica Tandy and her best friend Sylvia Sidney kvetch from the sidelines. Everything gets tied up in a neat little bow in time for the U.S. moon landing.The film is obviously trying to be something in the same vein as Moonstruck, but its fails spectacularly and only increases appreciation of that earlier film. The bulk of the film's problems stem from the screenplay and the characters. Did there really have to be this many people? Bates is a great actress, but her character is too generic. By contrast, Harden is so off-the-wall that no scene with her can possibly be taken seriously. Harden spends the film donning one cinematic disguise after another - one moment she is Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, in another scene she is Bonnie Parker from Bonnie and Clyde, etc. This is obviously a woman with something pathological wrong with her and the fact that almost no one in the film addresses it is disturbing.Tandy and Sidney are fun as the old-timers, but they are given limited screen time. And even with that it is hard to dismiss the notion that Tandy is miscast and Sidney should have been given her role instead.Most damning of all is that it is impossible to root for a romance between MacLaine and Mastroianni. I usually enjoy MacLaine, but she is playing a cast-iron shrew here. She comes off as an utterly joyless woman who gets her jollies by picking other people apart - especially those unwilling or unable to defend themselves. When the good-natured Bates finally summons the courage to escape her mother's home and malignant influence, she should be given a moment where she lays out how MacLaine has denigrated her. Instead, somehow MacLaine gets a foolish rant about how everything impacts her - revealing the utter selfishness in an unlikable character. We can see no reason why anyone with an iota of intelligence would fall for such a charmless person - and this ends up making the otherwise charming Mastroianni seem either delusional or insane. If we have nothing invested in the romantic central pairing, then the film can only be considered an abject failure.This is the kind of film where literally every character on screen is given a manufactured crisis that can then be solved magically by the climax. MacLaine will find love with Mastroianni, Tandy and Sidney will find satisfaction in their twilight years, Harden will learn to put away her childish game and become a mother to her needy son. It is the kind of film where Bates has barely left MacLaine's sphere of influence to launch a new life across the country, before she has returned a "success" - which means she shows up at a family function with a new hairstyle.A really brazen and shallow film that would work far better as a low-rent sitcom.

gcd70 This story about real people falls right into the category of "Moonstruck" and "Once Around". Todd Graff's story and subsequent screenplay deals with the ups and downs of a Jewish family in late 60's Queens, New York City, and the budding romance between a widow and an Italian stranger.Beeban Kidron's movie is full of fabulous characters played wonderfully by Shirley Maclaine, Marcello Mastroianni, Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and the ever enjoyable Marcia Gay Harden. Look also for veteran actress Sylvia Sidney who puts in a fine turn. A very satisfying movie to make you laugh and cry.Wednesday, July 21, 1993 - Waverley Pinewood Cinema

Damien V. This movie is a shameless, poor man's knockoff of the almost-as-bad and terribly overrated, "Moonstruck" --MacClaine's performance is unbearable. What was with her attempt at an ethnic New York accent? She wound up sounding like Lanie Kazan with adenoids. Jessica Tandy, by this time, was on life support, and so overused and played out, that you've got to feel sorry for her. Everybody else in the script, save for Marcello, has a "New Yawk" accent while Tandy sounds like the local Mrs. Vanderbilt. She must have gone to a finishing school in Flatbush.Marcello is dragged into this mess in a blatant attempt to add legitimacy to the drivel -- poor guy.Used People must have been green-lighted by a USED Car Salesman. It's a worse-than-Moonstruck (and that ain't easy) atrocity.Sorry but I calls 'em as I sees 'em. Damien

niel How bad could a movie be with such a cast? Well, used people is very bad! For one thing the charactors are all charicatures. Not that good actors can't play charactors that are not like themselves, they can. But such acting talent could not overcome stereotypes of New York Jews. Not only are their accents terrible but the dialog is awful too.