Though there are several actors in Fool for Love, two share the majority of screen time:
Sam Shepard as Eddie, and
Kim Basinger as May. May toils away at a fleabag motel; Eddie is her former love, long absent. Unexpectedly re-entering May's life, Eddie picks up where he left off, and soon the couple is alternately bickering violently and making love with equal fervor. Peripheral characters include
Harry Dean Stanton as a boozed-up bum, Martha Crawford as an aristocratic would-be murderer, and
Randy Quaid as the current man in the heroine's life. This one-two punch of iconoclastic playwright
Sam Shepard and unconventional director
Robert Altman proved a failure at the box-office and with critics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide