Fool for Love (1985)

75% of critics liked it
(12 reviews)
41% of users liked it
(1,213 ratings)

Though there are several actors in Fool for Love, two share the majority of screen time: Sam Shepard as Eddie, and Kim Basinger as May. May toils away at a fleabag motel; Eddie is her former love, long absent. Unexpectedly re-entering May's life, Eddie picks up where he left off, and soon the couple… More Though there are several actors in Fool for Love, two share the majority of screen time: Sam Shepard as Eddie, and Kim Basinger as May. May toils away at a fleabag motel; Eddie is her former love, long absent. Unexpectedly re-entering May's life, Eddie picks up where he left off, and soon the couple is alternately bickering violently and making love with equal fervor. Peripheral characters include Harry Dean Stanton as a boozed-up bum, Martha Crawford as an aristocratic would-be murderer, and Randy Quaid as the current man in the heroine's life. This one-two punch of iconoclastic playwright Sam Shepard and unconventional director Robert Altman proved a failure at the box-office and with critics. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 48 min.
Directed By: Robert Altman
Written By: Sam Shepard
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Jan 1, 1985 Limited
On DVD: Apr 20, 2004
Studio: Cannon Films

Critic Reviews

Vincent Canby, New York Times
Though most of the tension of the theatrical presentation is gone, the movie preserves a lot of the play's lunatic humor. It also understands the Shepard concern for characters who have somehow found themselves cut loose from any social roots.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Altman's staging only underlines the pretentious vagaries built into Shepard's concept.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
With Fool for Love, he has succeeded on two levels that seem opposed to each other. He has made a melodrama, almost a soap opera, in which the characters achieve a kind of nobility.
Nick Davis, Nick's Flick Picks
The basic friction between Altman's lightness and Shepard's portentousness serves the movie in rich and ever-expanding ways, and not just because you can't ever predict how the narrative will swerve.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
It seems like a transplanted drama from the 1950s.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
A scorching drama about the war between the sexes.
Noel Murray, AV Club
Fool For Love is too removed from the real world to connect as more than a spooky, extradimensional love story.