My Review for THE PRINCE OF TIDES.

Starring:
                  Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte, Blythe Danner, Kate Nelligan, Jeroen Krabbe, Melinda Dillon, George Carlin and Jason Gould.

Directed By:
                     Barbra Streisand.


Review:
             So The Prince of Tides was a movie i ended up watching on TV a few months back while changing the channels i ended up on this. The movie started with a heart touching and amazing musical score followed by the beautiful cinematography which just caught my attention and without knowing the name of the movie i thought i should watch this. It turned out to be The Prince of Tides which i knew was a Streisand directed movie starring her and Nick Nolte so yes i was really curious to see how this movie ended up nominating as Best Picture of the year at the Oscars. The story is about Tom Wingo played by Nick Nolte who is a teacher and a football coach is asked by his mother to visit New York his twin sister's psychiatrist needs help for her after the latest suicide attempt. Susan Lowenstein played by Barbra Streisand is working on Tom's sister Savannah played by Melinda Dillon's case. Tom wants to get away from everything so he decides to go even though he never liked that city. From his flashbacks we see his childhood was utterly disturbing thanks to his dysfunctional parents, specially his abusive father. Tom has his own problems but he hides it from her, his wife is having an affair and is in love with someone else. Susan asks him to coach his son football and during his attending sessions with Susan he discovers that in order to hide her troubled life, Savannah evolved this different identity of her where she writes books. Tom is angry over Susan for not revealing this information and they have a fight and as a apology, she invites him for dinner. Tom and Susan develops feeling for each other too and becomes closer.

                 The Prince of Tides is a movie i might give a second chance and this time carefully watch as to what i missed. I thought this movie was very overrated, it just wasn't very good. A fine story treated very badly by Streisand that this movie just doesn't reaches the actual emotions that it should. I didn't felt a single thing for the characters, Streisand really concentrates in the quirkiness, strangeness and weirdness of her characters without treating them with full honesty so they turns out quite douche and pathetic so you don't feel like feeling any thing for them. The whole structure of the movie gets too complicated for a movie of this sort and it relays not so much on the flashbacks than the present unnecessary romance between Tom and Susan. While watching the movie i felt like something was missing and didn't felt right. I think the romance between them gets too much of a attention and the result is a very sappy and utterly over the top ridiculousness. The flashback should have formed the main plot and through that the actual story of the characters would have evolved and developed more than it is now and we would have really gotten the insight of his troubled family and childhood more.

                 This movie loses its touch as its move on and never truly reaches the point that makes the beginning and the flashbacks of the characters a real stunning piece of cinematic achievement by Barbra Streisand. One other scene in particular provides the most comic relief in the movie has to be the dinner scene, it has to be one of the best scenes ever. The whole psychotic, idiotic, aggressive yet superbly weird behavior by the characters is just hilarious. Nick Nolte delivers one of the best performance of his entire career and a truly standout Oscar caliber performance. He simply stands out from the rest of the cast even though his character is something you might not get quite close to but still what he does to make you feel or explore the character is pure perfection. I really didn't liked a single bit of Barbra Streisand's performance and she was literally horrible. Direction and writing is very flawed too but yes simple amazing score, cinematography and art direction makes up for it slightly. One more thing about performances is Kate Nelligan as the mother of Tom is simply superb and stunning.

                A disappointing movie that pays too much attention and unnecessary closure to one side of the story to get out certain feel and by ignoring the other side of it, the movie comes off as a half baked story of this family who needed more care and affection by Barbra as a director and writer.

Grade: C-