Autumn in New York (2000)

Autumn in New York DVD

Item was faulty, but the seller responded immediately to the problem and resolved it beyond my satisfaction. I highly recommend this seller for you will be satisfactorily taken care of if there are any issues to resolve. The item wasn't 5-star, but I give the seller 5 stars PLUS! December 8, 2008

Autumn InNew York

I love the movie and it was in perfect condition as stated by the seller. August 1, 2008

Like a bird to a feather...

The title could not be more true to life in this movie. Rarely does such a well made movie, {besides another on Amazon I praised} could have such a title that has so many layers to the story itself.

Bring the Kleenex, girls. It's a whopper. June 30, 2008

Richard Gere and Winona Ryder Shine

Years ago, I spent a fair amount of time with the University of Washington's Professor Charles Johnson. For those of you who don't know, Chuck Johnson won the National Book Award in 1990 for his novel Middle Passage, and was rated by the Los Angeles Times as one of the top 10 literary short story writers in America. I'm not going to BS you with any "my good friend Chuck Johnson" stories; Chuck was best friends with one of my best friends, so I wound tagging along on numerous "visiting Chuck at his house" nights.

Anyway, since I had expressed an interest in literary fiction, about which I knew essentially nothing, Chuck loaned me a book called The Best Literary Short Stories of the Year - one of which was written by him. I read that entire book. And it was hard. Hard, hard. Because - aside from Chuck's story "Kwoon" which was great - these stories were the most mind-numbingly boring things imaginable. All I could think was, "And these are the year's BEST literary short stories? I shudder to imagine the worst." I gave the book back to Chuck, with thanks, and was honest about my reaction. I'll never forget what he told me then, partly because it surprised me, coming from someone so lauded within the literary fiction community:

"You're right, most literary fiction IS boring. For two reasons: (1) Most literary fiction is autobiographical - and most literary writers have led pretty boring lives. (2) Most literary fiction is about weak people with small problems that they can't solve."

What does all that have to do with Autumn in New York? I'm glad you asked! I thought of Chuck Johnson's comment while, and after, watching this film, because Autumn in New York could, almost, be a literary movie. Only this is not a story about weak people with small problems that they can't solve. This is a story about strong people with a big problem that they can't solve, and is thus immensely more interesting.

Director Joan Chen does an oustanding job in this movie, as does her director of photography, Chang Wei Gu. New York City, clad in autumn leaves or winter snow, is luminously captured, almost a character in the story itself. Richard Gere and Winona Ryder each give the best performance I've ever seen from them. (These are not exactly unknown actors who've never done anything impressive before, so that's saying something.) Chen is smart enough to let the camera linger on both their faces during intense scenes, so we can appreciate every nuance of subtle facial experession, just how damn GOOD both these people are at their jobs.

Richard Gere portrays Will Keane, shallow, handsome, womanizing, 48-year-old, successful New York restauranteur who finds himself falling in love with Ryder's 22-year-old Charoltte Fielding. It would be easy to dismiss this movie as just another example of the "hot young girl falls in love with a man twice her age" film so despised by many women. As one woman put it, "This is a male fantasy. What is this beautiful young woman going to do, be around to ease him into his dotage?" Usually in such a movie the age difference is never mentioned. However Autumn in New York is much smarter than that. The age difference gets discussed between these two a LOT, especially early on, and Charlotte makes it clear she's absolutely thrilled to be the object of interest of a sucessful, famous, older guy who looks exactly like Richard Gere. Not exactly a stretch there. Besides, Charlotte has news for Will. She's dying, with probably less than a year to live, so it's not like being around to "ease him into his dotage" is a major concern for her.

It's been said that what makes characters interesting in fiction is the amount of change we can watch them go through. In that sense, Will is the most interesting character in the movie. Charlotte is beautiful and charming and playful and intelligent, and it's totally believable that even this dedicated playboy would find himself falling for her. But throughout the movie she's the same wonderful person as when we first meet her. Will, on the other hand, finds his relationship with Charlotte working profound changes, oftentimes none too gently, in his entire personality.

The scenes with Will and Charlotte are so well-written, their dialogue so witty and touching, this could almost, were it not for the looming spectre of Charlotte's impending death, be a romantic comedy. In that regard I have to give Autumn in New York full props for avoiding the great pitfall of romantic comedies, what I've heard called the Idiot Plot Device. The IPD is that misunderstanding between the two main characters, typically occurring about 20 minutes from the end of the film, that temporarily splits them up before the unrealistically easy reconciliation at the end, and is so-called because the only way this could ever happen in real life is if both people were idiots. Even a movie as otherwise well-done as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days falls victim to the Idiot Plot Device, but again Autumn in New York is much smarter than that. We do see Charlotte and Will split, but the reason they do so is anything but idiotic, and their reconciliation anything but conveniently easy.

Autumn in New York says that loving is better than not loving, that love opens you up to the possibility of being hurt, perhaps severely, but in the final analysis is better than never having loved. This is not a happy little movie. But it is an extraordinarily well-done film that will haunt you, and stay in your mind and heart long after the end credits roll. There are few enough movies of which we can say that. March 8, 2008

Not That Great!

This movie was one that I had wanted to see in movie theaters, but was glad that I saw it on dvd instead! It is awfully boring, sappy and filled with fluff and not much substance.

Richard Gere, in my opinion, does a poor acting job in this movie and doesn't seem all that believable as the leading man in this movie. Sure Gere makes nice eye candy, but that is about it.

Normally I enjoy the roles that Winona Ryder plays and find her acting to be wonderful.... However, I was sorely disappointed in the shallow development of the Ryder's character by the writers of this movie.

The only redeeming feature of this movie was that it didn't have the typical/predictable Hollywood ending. January 20, 2008

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