Love And Pain And The Whole Damn Thing

A scenic Spanish background serves well this sensitive love story about two misfits, both finding a sense of belonging for the first time. Bottoms plays the dropout son of a successful father. He is on a bicycle tour of Spain when he runs into Smith, an aging spinster, timid to the point of neurosis. After a set of bumbling attempts by Bottoms to make love to Smith, she eventually gives in. Both Smith and Bottoms give convincing performances in difficult roles; they manage to display their inner emotions without falling into cliched histrionics. The whole story almost falls apart, though, when the script injects the terminal-illness theme (Smith is dying). Material...