Released: October 17, 1973
Director: Sydney Pollack
*****
There is something disconcerting about a movie consisting of incidents from a romance, yet no cohesive story can be found. Sure, this melodrama starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford is about their tumultuous affair and marriage, but it's ultimately not about anything.
In the final analysis, despite Hubbell's protests, Katie can't get away from her activist roots. Spanning the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, she campaigns against the Hollywood Blacklist and "the bomb"; she is as outspoken as people-especially a woman-comes; and has a burning desire to do some good with her life. Which constrasts with Hubbell's military career and general malaise after World War II. The simplest problem in this film is the audience never understands why the two get together in the first place? A casual fling? The societal expectation to settle down now that the world is safe? It's a mystery since, for most of the film, these two are at odds.
In any romance, in order for the audience to buy into two characters and their struggles, we have to understand what is so great about either of them. Here, there's nothing to suggest there is any love between them. Katie can't stand Hubbell's friends and their politics; he doesn't like her insistence on being outspoken. It certainly wasn't the norm in the 30s for a woman to have any views, let alone discuss them with the guys.
The look of The Way We Were is all wrong, too. Early in the film, during their college days, Katie sports a bad perm straight out of the 1970s. Outside of references to world events, nothing remotely suggests the time period the events take place in, which happens to be another problem. Both of these people live in sheltered worlds: Hubbell's in which the world is a dandy place; and Katie, whose world needs to be fought for and improved. The Way We Were doesn't live up to the talent in front of and behind the camera. It's narrative is, frankly, boring since we're never given a reason to like these people. And the performances are just as under the radar as you're going to find from two up and coming (in 1973) actors as you're going to find.