For a generation of Americans, Alan Alda was pretty much the standard bearer for the New Man. The sensitive soul, clad in a respectable sweater, offering not the usual toxicity and power plays, but understanding, warmth, and a gentle smile. I mean, this guy listened, and the more problems you had, the more he cared. He had that undeniable twinkle; that rare ability to disarm you with a subtle shrug or quiver of the lip. He didn’t cry much, but could if called upon, and his very sweetness threatened to send chauvinism itself into the dustbin of history. Millions balked, of course, preferring to uphold the Norman Mailer type that grabbed and grunted, perhaps after throwing a punch or two, but well into the 1980’s, Alda reigned supreme. From M*A*S*H* to Same Time, Next Year, he held court, took on all comers, and dared anyone to challenge his near monopoly on the art of seduction.
Then, somewhere around the late summer of 1992, he threw it all away. No doubt tired of being the shoulder, the rock, and the guy every woman turns to when they can’t get through to their Neanderthal husbands, Alda picked up a script, put on a pot of coffee, and set about to so radically alter his image, he’d likely never work again. He did, of course, even securing an Oscar nomination along the way, but the die had been cast. We’d seen another side. A new angle. Alda, once weepy and sentimental, was now a bloodthirsty killer. A pervert. A lunatic so demented, he thought nothing of smashing the adorable Jill Clayburgh in the head with a wine bottle. Sure, his Leo Green would continue to wear those iconic sweaters, but rather than pulling at a loose thread with aw-shucks innocence, he’d be pounding his chest with such force, you half expected a cardiac arrest right there in the living room. As an acting exercise, he had reached a new level of scenery chewing, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t make me love him more. He was human at last.
Leo is, from the outset, a man in full. At the top of his profession, he is the Director of Residency Training for psychiatrists at a prestigious university. He’s the Freud of his day; so calm and cool, he never betrays a single inner thought. He’s sent dozens of highly skilled therapists into the world, including the plucky young Ann Hecker; a tormented, daddy-obsessed shrink who, of course, has managed to land every nutcase in the tri-state area. We only glimpse three of her patients, but all are utterly insane, weaving obsessions and fantasies so bizarre, Ann can’t help but get a little flushed while trying to fake passive disinterest. Hell, she’s even a little turned on. So much so, she’s having naughty dreams herself, which she must express to Leo, who, as both a friend and colleague, can act as her quasi-therapist. Ethical lines are blurred, but no one seems to care. The screenplay requires Leo to hear these stories, for the exact reason you’d expect.
You see, Leo is in love with Ann. Beyond smitten, in fact. Ever since being the man she turned to when her father committed suicide while she was away at college, he’s romanticized her all out of proportion. He loves her eyes, her smile, her coy innocence. Thankfully, he’s recorded every last word of his unethical obsession on neatly labeled cassette tapes. Right down to the date and topic du jour. Naturally, as these tapes would both end his career and 25-year marriage, he places them in the same cabinet as the home’s stereo system. A secret compartment, perhaps? Not a chance. Right there among the mix tapes and classical albums. For all to see, though it appears no one has. That is, until Ann is asked to grab a Vivaldi record for an evening’s relaxation. Maybe Leo wanted to get caught. Maybe it was a masterful in-joke (Alda directed and starred in a film called, yessir, The Four Seasons). The only other possibility is lazy screenwriting, and given the film’s overall ridiculousness, I’ll go with Occam’s Razor, as usual.
Make no mistake, however, I mean that in a nice way. Back when I first saw this movie at a Colorado Springs dollar theater in the fall of ’92, I’m not sure I had ever laughed harder in public. My roaring reached such a fever pitch, I damn near passed out. Had Alda done nothing but freak the fuck out and upend a dinner table, I would have left satisfied. But when he chased Ann down the beach with a grappling hook, only to have that same instrument end up in his forehead, well, that was just what I needed to proclaim this little film the guiltiest pleasure of the decade. That denouement, from Leo’s ham-fisted leering while Ann undressed, to his bipolar meltdown where, within 90 seconds, he went from tearing his face off to calmly eating his meal, will forever go unchallenged as Alda’s finest hour. Fuck Hawkeye Pierce; here was the man I wanted to be.
In many ways, Leo deserved better. As his spread-eagle corpse floated atop the waves, we are, I assume, meant to see him as a tragic figure. All that intelligence, money, and respect, and he threw it away on what amounted to a schoolboy crush. Two murders (at minimum!) to his credit, along with the most sudden declaration of divorce in history. What was his end game? Had he successfully chased Ann down and sent her drifting into the ocean, would he have returned to his home, cleaned things up, and tried to go on with his work? Goddamn this movie for not going that route. It may have even generated a sequel. In the end, it’s as Leo said: “A bright psychopath can fool anybody.” Christ, he hardly disguised a thing. Physician, heal thyself. And the strongest case ever made that no one – and I mean no one – goes into psychiatry who isn’t themselves severely disturbed. They want to both understand their own madness and feel superior to other, more degenerate cases. I may be bad, one thinks, but get a load of this guy. For Ann, Leo is now that man. Rest in peace, sensitive soul.
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