Modern Romance
Encyclopedia
Cast
- Albert BrooksAlbert BrooksAlbert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
.... Robert Cole - Kathryn HarroldKathryn Harrold-Background:Harrold was born in Tazewell, Virginia. She attended Mills College in Oakland, California, majoring in Drama.-Television:She has appeared in a number of TV series, including The Rockford Files, MacGruder and Loud, The Bronx Zoo, I'll Fly Away, The Larry Sanders Show, and Mister...
.... Mary Harvard - Bruno KirbyBruno KirbyBruno Kirby was an American film and television actor. He was perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally..., Good Morning, Vietnam, The Godfather Part II and Donnie Brasco.-Early life:Kirby was born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu, Jr. in New York City,...
.... Jay
Plot
Robert Cole (Albert BrooksAlbert Brooks
Albert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
) is a Hollywood film editor right in the middle of cutting a new science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
with George Kennedy
George Kennedy
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is perhaps most familiar as the convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke , airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s and...
. His relationship with very patient bank executive Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold
Kathryn Harrold
-Background:Harrold was born in Tazewell, Virginia. She attended Mills College in Oakland, California, majoring in Drama.-Television:She has appeared in a number of TV series, including The Rockford Files, MacGruder and Loud, The Bronx Zoo, I'll Fly Away, The Larry Sanders Show, and Mister...
) is caught between undying devotion and endless agony. It's all because selfish Robert is a bit of a self-involved neurotic who can't quite decide if their relationship is meant to be, mainly because he's not sure if she's the one or there's someone else.
Robert breaks off their relationship only to find that modern romance isn't as easy as it seems, and the people you love might be the ones you constantly hurt the most. He and Mary end up driving to a cabin in Idyllwild, California, where intense jealousy causes Robert to alternately accuse and annoy Mary and propose marriage to her.
Production
Bruno KirbyBruno Kirby
Bruno Kirby was an American film and television actor. He was perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally..., Good Morning, Vietnam, The Godfather Part II and Donnie Brasco.-Early life:Kirby was born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu, Jr. in New York City,...
co-stars as Jay, Robert's co-worker and confidant, and Brooks' brother Bob Einstein
Bob Einstein
Stewart Robert "Bob" Einstein is an American actor and comedy writer best known for his portrayal of the fictional stuntman Super Dave Osborne.-Life and career:...
, best known as hapless daredevil Super Dave Osborne
Super Dave Osborne
Super Dave Osborne is a character created and played by comedian Bob Einstein. He is a naive but optimistic stuntman who is frequently injured when his stunts go wrong.-Appearance history:...
, plays a pushy salesman at a sporting goods store.
A third brother, Cliff, has a cameo in the scenes set in the recording studio. He plays the music mixer, the bald man sitting to the left of the head mixer, who gets up and goes to his car during the break.
David, the director of the film that Robert is editing, is played by real-life film director James L. Brooks
James L. Brooks
James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
- no relation to Albert. He would later return the favor by casting Albert in his Academy Award-nominated role of Aaron Altman in "Broadcast News
Broadcast News (film)
Broadcast News is a 1987 romantic comedy-drama film written, produced and directed by James L. Brooks. The film concerns a virtuoso television news producer , who has daily emotional breakdowns, a brilliant yet prickly reporter and his charismatic but far less seasoned rival...
".
According to Albert Brooks, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
was a big fan of the film. He tells the story that Kubrick called him after viewing the film and asked "How did you make this movie? I've always wanted to make a movie about jealousy."