Falling in Love (1984)

#10 — Molly Gilmore, a married woman who, against her better judgment, falls in love with a married man.

This article was initially published at The Film Experience.

John: Falling in Love is my favorite movie. Well, not exactly. I only just watched it for the first time, so I can’t exactly gauge the extent of my affection. But I’ll repeat: Falling in Love is my favorite movie. It’s hard not to fall in love (sorry) with a movie where Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro have an affair in 1983 New York City, aided by best pals Dianne Wiest and Harvey Keitel. After a chance encounter at the beautiful Manhattan bookstore Rizzoli on Christmas Eve, the two meet again months later, care of the blessed Metro North, and eventually have their desires and marriages tested. One could say it’s a Mazursky-inflected Deer Hunter reunion, minus the wit, or The Bridges of Dobbs Ferry, minus the tension. But Falling in Love is a perfectly, almost lovingly clichéd brief encounter featuring two unexpectedly nuanced lead performances. It’s cinematic comfort food of the loveliest order.

Streep is Molly Gilmore, a graphic designer with a stiff doctor husband (David Clennon) and a dying father (George Martin), and nearly nothing else of a backstory to report. In our last entry I noted that Streep as Karen Silkwood is ostensibly the closest character to her own personality that she had yet played, but Falling in Love quickly bucks that distinction. Character details of any sort are superfluous in describing Streep as Molly, as the film barely disguises the fact that both she and De Niro are playing themselves. This isn’t necessarily a demerit; they “play themselves” in the way that Kate and Spence did in their vehicles, and when you’re Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, playing yourself can be just as appealing as other actors deeply camouflaging themselves into characters.

Streep is chic, present, constantly intrigued, deluged with emotions, full of non-sequiturs and facial tics, and effortlessly charismatic in a part as paper-thin as her character’s design portfolio. Rather than lament the imminent shortcomings of the role, I’d rather savor the time-capsule aspect of the project and all of the indelible Meryl Moments baked into it. There’s a standout scene very late into the film, in which Molly is actively betraying her marital vows and going through outfits to wear on her “date” with De Niro’s Frank Raftis. Streep looks at herself in the mirror and whispers, “What are you doing?” with an honesty as piercing as her Adaptation bathroom break. Then there’s her initial, flustered response to De Niro’s early come-ons, where she responds to his “How are you?” with “I’m married too,” and the delicious way she rationalizes their first official date with the spry line, “Well married people have to eat lunch too.” What are some moments in which you fell in love with Meryl or the film? Did you fall in love? Or maybe you would care to answer the question De Niro poses to Keitel during a scene at the gym: “Do you think I’m good looking?”

John: Maybe Streep’s not exactly playing herself (and how could we plebeians ever truly determine that?) but is instead asked more simply to be than to transform via an accent, wig, or self-immersion within a different time period. The dull husband, dying father, and miscarriage beats didn’t exactly color the character for me as they did for you, maybe because each problem feels patently scripted as obstacles ripped from a Screenwriting 101 book. Like you’ve said, all I could think about was Streep and De Niro reuniting in this atypical project for stars of their abilities and stature. I assume that the two both jumped at the opportunity to work together again, regardless of the material, and this enthusiasm steadies shakier moments and deepens banal exercises like their first train-ride chatter. Although I just watched Falling in Love, few moments actually stick in my mind, but the ones that do are not textual or narrative, but are instead the lovely interactions, glances, and moments of trepidations between Molly and Frank.

But some moments land all their own. As much I was thinking about The Deer Hunter, I was also reminded of The Bridges of Madison County. Towards the end of the film, when both De Niro and Streep’s spouses are aware of their infidelities, Frank calls Molly and asks to say a final goodbye before he boards a plane to start anew in Texas. Streep seizes this opportune moment to be characteristically flustered, flaunting that visceral blend of intrigue and caution. She rushes past her husband, barrels into her car, and drives through a thunderstorm (of course) to say one final goodbye, just missing a railroad collision in her frenzied trek to De Niro’s home before ultimately turning back. Streep will later repeat this late-stage scenario of romantic decision-making in a vehicle during the rain, but this is a fine warm-up, offering her a rich opportunity to play the type of wordless negotiation and vacillation with which she excels in expressing. This tug between pragmatism and desire works as a summative statement for many a Streep performance, tempered here only by the vagueness of the character and the weightlessness of her conundrum. Which other scenes left a mark on your memory? Or did it already evaporate?

Matthew: The specifics of Falling in Love are definitely a little difficult to recall. Arguably the film’s most heightened and memorable scene, aside from the climactic car chase, is also the one that feels ripped from a completely different movie: Streep’s sobbing, knee-buckling breakdown at the cemetery following the death of her father, a moment that veers between being bizarrely overworked and genuinely heartbreaking as the actress performs at a strength perhaps more intense than the film can understandably handle.

That being said, I agree with you that the real achievements of Streep and De Niro’s performances here are those modest gesticulative touches that occur in between moments. With her vivid assortment of averted gazes, nervous pauses, and uncomfortable fidgets, Streep looks to be believably wading through inchoate feelings, clearly understanding the emotional vulnerability of a new and unplanned love that cannot be put into words just yet. For his part, De Niro movingly mirrors and smartly pushes back against Streep’s recessive tendencies, even as the latter remains the more glaringly shame-ridden of the two. It’s clear from the start that Molly is palpably attracted to Frank, but Streep never allows herself to look too comfortable or at home in De Niro’s company, reminding us of the inescapable difficulty of this inconvenient affair and making her sporadic flashes of contentment all the more meaningful. I never believed Molly as a fully-realized character but I believed the emotional journey that Streep had charted for her. More than anyone else involved in the production, she possesses a clear vision of what this distressed woman’s sensitivity might look like, how it might manifest itself not just internally but on her face and frame.

Falling in Love never threatens to break into the upper ranks of Streep’s filmography and the performance itself is easy to overlook amid a canon of ten performances already replete with some landmark characterizations. But as slight as the film may be, Streep is still able to evocatively impart a sense of individual experience, giving us a quietly potent impression of what it’s like to be alive right now as this particular woman. Sometimes that, combined with the ancillary pleasures of two peerless artists simply sharing the same screen, is enough.