Up Close And Personal Details

Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer star in this romantic drama set in a Miami television newsroom. Redford plays the veteran former White House correspondent who takes small-town girl Pfeiffer under his wing, helping her overcome stage fright and seeing her career as a television journalist take off as his idles. It's all tosh, of course, but the Star Is Born theme of male self-sacrifice is finely manipulated by director Jon Avnet, and, as a three-hanky movie, it's not to be sniffed at. It's a crying shame, however, that the talents of Stockard Channing and Kate Nelligan are wasted in relatively minor roles as hard-bitten rival news anchors.

Very much a 'so what?' movie, a sentimental weepie about what are presumably intended as glamorous and powerful lives; outside its home territory, it looks and sounds ridiculous.