Cinema: Fun Couple or Un Couple?

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NADINE

As screenwriter and director, Robert Benton loves odd couples, whether outlaws * (Bonnie and Clyde, Bad Company) or in-laws (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart). With Nadine, he blends the two. Vernon Hightower, who owns a bar teetering toward bankruptcy, is a congenital optimist. Nadine, his estranged wife, sees life too clearly to find much hope in it. Cute couple for a caper film -- maybe even a fun couple, game to turn love-hate into love-great and to con the local crooks. Well, no. As played by Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, they are an "un" couple: unsuitable emotionally, underdeveloped dramatically. The picture is plenty handsome, and Glenne Headly and Rip Torn have some fun as a lost lady and the meanest guy in Austin, Texas. Still, Nadine, an agreeable entertainment, is a disappointment from a fine filmmaker. This shaggy tale of his native state has a place in Benton's heart but not in his art. R.C.