Heartburn

Heartburn is a masterpiece, a collaboration of mature artists at the peak of their craft, and something of a summing up for Mike Nichols, who, more successfully than any other American director, has staked out the terrain where men and women meet as his own. Here it is -- a movie that is seriously funny.

The film is rich in fillips--smart little taps and strokes. But after a while you start asking yourself, what is this movie about? (You're still asking when it's over.)

Heartburn doesn't have enough good inside semi-fiction to be of much interest to the Washington cognoscenti, and it's not enough of a movie to stay in the memory of the outside-the-beltway crowd more than an hour or two. What it is is a chance to see our two most celebrated actors at work for a while between films. [25 July 1986, p.D1]

Unhappily, the movie begins to show signs of wear even before the marriage does.

This is a bitter, sour movie about two people who are only marginally interesting.

The film is based on the Ephron novel detailing her marital break-up with journalist Carl Bernstein; but although the book had a distinctive bite, the film is a colorless adaptation.

The audience is never fully let in on either character’s interior life, as we skip from incident to incident. This is despite Streep and Nicholson working overtime—a strange sight for two effortless actors.