CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER, about as uplifting as the title, was first released in 1979 as Head Over Heels and was marketed as a romantic comedy. It promptly tumbled downstairs; in New York City, for example, a two-week run scratched just $17,000. That’s because audiences expecting a lift of cheer left wondering if the person they went with was slyly trying to tell them something less than heartwarming. In 1982 United Artists re-released it, apt title from its source novel restored, and with a different ending, more mood suitable than the baloney finish for Head Over Heels. This time, the quixotic appeal of misery and anxiety pulled patrons and the gross went up to $8,600,000, satisfactorily paying off the original $2,200,000 tab.

“It’s not that it doesn’t still hurt. It’s that you get used to it.”

Civil servant drone ‘Charles Richardson’ (John Heard) ruefully reflects on his failed romance with ‘Laura Connelly’ (Mary Beth Hurt), a former co-worker he waged fling warfare with while she was separated from her dependably steady but unexciting husband (and father of her young daughter). Confused about who and where she is in life and what she wants, Laura’s piqued by Charles’ interest but tentative about getting too serious. He’s not, and his dogged affection escalates into a terriers obsession, initially irritating, eventually next to menacing (any wounded-puppy sympathy for Charles goes out the window when he tells her he might rape her and “beat the shit” out of her). While he’s fumbling with Laura, he’s burdened by a loafer roommate (Peter Riegert) and having to mind his mother (Gloria Grahame, 55), alcoholic edging into suicidal.

There’s a moment where Laura, exasperated by Charles’ needy badgering, tells him “If you think I’m that great, there must be something wrong with you.” That is a sharp line, a jab someone with self-esteem issues might let slip—out of self-doubt, self-defense or, in the case of this mismatched pair, both. Bummer, that it’s also one of the few pieces of dialogue in the script that sounds authentic, as most conversations throughout the 92 minutes come off like improv, bad improv. Was the source material—Ann Beattie’s 280-page novel—that opaque, or did writer-director Joan Micklin Silver simply give bare scene outlines to the actors and tell them “Just say whatever comes to mind”, hoping to pass it off as ‘real’ ?  The plotline is believable, the scene setups viable, the actors are fine, but 90% of what they blab isn’t bright, thoughtful or revealing, just stilted, awkward and dull. Obviously in real life, that can be true, but for this story to have a firm grip we want to see something in these people that would indicate their appeal to one another. No, we’re just supposed to infer it, so that the apparently easier thrust—alienation—can dominate. And thus oddly please those who get some satisfaction out of dissatisfaction. No wonder it’s got a sourly devoted following, but as one of those left un-charmed we think the price is too high for spending time with the unpleasant, hollow, Altmanoid characters, waiting hopefully for the actors to fake you into believing that any of these cutouts/people would want to be around each other for more time than it takes to say “Excuse me while I…look for the door/drink myself unconscious/call the cops/move out of state/hike across Russia.”

Silver cast Heard, 32, based on his debut work as another intense loner in her previous film Between The Lines. By the time Head Over Heels was re-released as Chilly Scenes Of Winter, he had added the soso Heart Beat (as Jack Kerouac) and the superb Cutter’s Way to what would amount to a career gallery of misanthropes. His bottled energy is always interesting, but while Charles dejection is relatable (who feels hopeful when they blow something good?), his creepy behavior cancels sympathy. In her second feature after Interiors (where she was excellent as another of Woody Allen’s cornucopia of civilized neurotics) Hurt, 33, is given even less to work with, other than the circumstance of her wobbly marriage; Laura’s smile seems to be her chief attribute. Riegert, 31, walks thru in a slight variation on his smug characters from Animal House (Long Live It!) and Americathon (just forget it), only more rumpled this time. When Gloria Grahame shows up, hope flickers, but again the barely-there script leaves her stranded, as lost as her character.

Having experienced plenty of roller coastering in the open-heart surgery of relationships we can readily empathise with blunders, loss, confusion, self-blame and WTF choices as much as the next casualty and don’t mind exorcising emotional history through a good movie, even bitter downers. I just don’t appreciate those that sneer at both their characters and the audience.

Set in Utah, where the exteriors were shot in Salt Lake City; the interior scenes done back in L.A. With valiant turns from Mark Metcalf (fresh from his immortal ‘Niedermeyer’ in Animal House; he also co-produced; as ‘Ox’, the dork hubby), Nora Heflin (Van’s niece, as a nice office worker that Charles treats like a fly), Kenneth McMillan (as Charles’ friendly but silly stepfather—he collects Turtle Wax—the script’s contempt for Middle Class ‘folks’ is as off-putting as the clumsy improv), Griffin Dunne, Jerry Hardin, Allen Joseph and Frances Bay.