SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Robert J. Maxwell Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and stars in this comedic/tragic tale of Kathryn Harrold's on and off romance with a man who just could not make up his mind. To the neurotic and semi-paranoid Brooks, the world looks like an optical illusion, a social Necker cube, in which someone's well-intentioned remark can turn with a flash into a put down. The overt can instantly seem covert.The irony is that all of this difficulty is internal. It's Brooks' own insecurity, his self doubt and self reassurance that's causing the anguish. His girl friend loves him but is exasperated by his possessivness and distrust. Is she seeing some other guy on the side? Who did she call at three in the morning? His girl friend is Kathryn Harrold. She swallows the screen whole whenever she appears. She could gang bang every man in the city of Dubuque, Iowa, as long as she came home to me once in a while.Taken as a whole, the movie has its longueurs. It's fun to see Brooks stone on Ludes and calling up old friends to tell them he loves them, but it does go on. The direction, though, is in no way amateurish. Still stoned, Brooks stumbles out of his house, gets into his Porsche, determined to visit Harrold, wrestles with the ignition, and then falls dead asleep. And Brooks the director never takes us for one second inside the Porsche. We can't even see Brooks through the window, just his mumbling and the silence that follows, until night turns to day -- all in one shot. Nicely done. Put succinctly, my feeling was that if you like Woody Allen, you'll like this film. Not that Brooks deliberately imitates Allen but just that they draw their water from the same cultural well.

DJAkin I saw this movie after Richard Roeper gave it a good review as a DVD pick of the week. I must say, that as a die hard ALBERT BROOKS fan, I am a huge fan of this MOVIE. Modern Romance is classic 1981 and the scenes where Albert is just walking around being depressed and neurotic about his romance with the girl is very funny. He is pathetic and obsessed with that girl. It's really funny when he takes a qualood and acts like he is on ambien. He calls some girl out of the blue and asks her out on a date. They go out on the date and instantly a MICHAEL JACKSON song comes on that is about breaking up. I laughed so hard that the beef jerky I was eating flew out of my hand!

malvernp Having read the other comments on this film, I would like to share my own view that this is one tough movie to see unless you are a total Brooksophile. I am not.When looked at by a purely objective observer, the film is an unbalanced narrative that presents us with more undistilled neuroses than are capable of being absorbed in one sitting. It is quite difficult to watch. The Brooks character (Robert Cole) is so unsympathetic and unpleasant that it is hard to relate to him---let alone root for him as he stumbles from one dysfunctional self-absorbed situation to the next. And he should NEVER do a topless scene and expect to be taken seriously in a romantic context. No man could have that much exposed foliage and be supposed to turn on a babe like Kathryn Harrold----unless, of course, he is Albert Brooks in an Albert Brooks-controlled production."Modern Romance" has its amusing moments-----but they are fragmentary and infrequent. More often than not, I felt as if I were on a confined journey with a thoroughly dislikable person and wishing that it would end already. It confirms the problems that can develop when too much control of a film is placed in only one person---someone who lacks the self-discipline to be able to step back from it and see what is clearly happening.As most people probably know, James L. Brooks, who played the director in this film, is in fact what he portrayed. Six years later, he cast Albert Brooks in the very successful "Broadcast News." James showed us how Albert can shape a credible and entertaining comic performance. Albert allowed us to see James (generally not cast as an actor) do a rare comic turn in a surprisingly effective manner.Fans of "Modern Romance" will by now have moved on to the next laudatory comment about it. To you I say-----there is enough pain in the world without having to find it in a film intended as an entertainment.

kristian3 I'll come straight out with it: This is my favourite film of all time.Albert Brooks is consistently the finest Writer, Director and Actor when it comes to the character driven comedy. And this is his finest moment.Robert Cole (Brooks) is a middle-aged, neurotic film editor, who continually breaks up and rekindles his relationship with Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harold).The film opens with a typically Brooksesk scene in a restaurant when he informs his girlfriend that things aren't working out. It is, perhaps, a measure of just how funny Brooks is that he even manages to be funny ordering an omelette; not intentionally, but funny nevertheless.What follows is the most brutal portrayal of what being insecure and neurotic can really do to you, and the empathy I experienced for Brooks' character is possibly unmatched by any other.I can appreciate that non-fans of Albert's might not fully appreciate this film - because it is so unashamedly Brooks - but I think most people will find something here to laugh-out-loud to, I know I laughed all the way through, and still do after dozens of replays.Make no mistake, watch this film today, and start to appreciate a genius who is under appreciated. Long live Albert.