Rent Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
3.5 of 5 from 58 ratings
1h 45min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Fleeing from her dreadful family, middle-aged English eccentric Lila Fisher (Dame Maggie Smith) decides to take a cut-price bus tour of Spain. While there she meets Walter (Timothy Bottoms), a teenage boy also on the run from his family of ruthless overachievers. Gradually their awkward friendship begins to turn into something more, as two lost and desperately lonely people find love for the very first time. And then Lila tells Walter her secret...
- Actors:
- Maggie Smith, Timothy Bottoms, Don Jaime de Mora y Aragón, Emiliano Redondo, Charles Baxter, Margaret Modlin, May Heatherly, Lloyd Brimhall, Elmer Modling, Andrés Monreal
- Directors:
- Alan J. Pakula
- Producers:
- Alan J. Pakula
- Writers:
- Alvin Sargent
- Studio:
- Sony
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- People of the Pictures, Remembering Maggie Smith
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Reviews (1) of Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing
Spanish Romance. - Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing review by Steve
Charming, leisurely comedy-drama elevated way above the standard by excellent performances from Timothy Bottoms as an alienated teenager from a rich American family and (especially) Maggie Smith as a nervous, rather austere middle aged spinster.
Of course they fall in love, while travelling through beautiful, rural Spain in the last years of Franco and before the age of mass tourism. So it feels like undiscovered country, almost feudal. While the lovers are separated by age and background, they are both lonely introverts.
And it’s a sweet tale of romantic serendipity and odd couple comedy, at least until the late (predictable) twist. Bottoms seems to channel Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) while Smith is serenely magnificent as a kind of vinegary lonely-heart; a dependable carer experiencing unexpected freedom.
The peaceful, touristic locations are a wistful setting for their improbable encounters on the road with Spanish eccentrics. The comedy is muted but really quite adorable. The script (Alvin Sargent) is sensitive and compassionate and directed with warmth by Alan J. Pakula. A cult film which might be better known.
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