mark.waltz I guess since "The Odd Couple" was already taken as a title, Robert Altman decided "A Perfect Couple" instead. This film seems about 10 years behind the times in its story of a young woman (Marta Heflin) involved with a seemingly hippie "Up With People!" type singing group who meets the portly Paul Dooley and their strange encounters while dealing with the others' eccentric groups and family and just trying to find time to learn about each other. Another missed opportunity for a potentially challenging emotional film about less than perfect people seeking happiness in a relationship, "A Perfect Couple" is just bizarre. Heflin, who is a cross between Shelley Duvall (an Altman regular), Olive Oyl (whom Duvall would play the following year) and Laraine Newman, isn't unattractive, but her character really isn't all that interesting. Dooley, too, has some issues. While I don't mind a film focusing on the usual supporting characters trying to be a leading player rather than a character type, I just never found myself interested in their situations, mainly because they really seem to be too distant as people to really care about.As far as the actors, I did like the fact that the majority of the cast is made up with unknowns. Of the cast, I only knew Dooley (of "Breaking Away" fame), Henry Gibson, Dimytra Arlyss and Dennis Franz; The rest of them to me were totally unfamiliar, so I did feel like I was watching something fresh on that perspective. Of those unknowns, Titos Vandis stood out as Dooley's tyrannical papa, and after researching his credits, I will certainly look for him in his other work. Two scenes that will probably remain in my memory are where Dooley and Heflin are trying to be alone but are interrupted, first by Vandis and his disapproving family, and later in a hotel room by Heflin's freaky pals. For connoisseurs of Altman's work, this will probably be a curio, but for others, it might be a good idea to know the type of film you are getting yourself into.

edwagreen An absolutely miserable film from beginning to end. How could anyone conceive of putting Paul Dooley in the lead here?Perhaps the best part of this awful picture is the downpour at the beginning.Both Dooley and his new found girlfriend are with dysfunctional people if ever there were. Dooley was supposed to have been married before but seems to be unbelievably tied to his Greek family with a string. The father exhibits too much control and does it really take the sudden death of his sister to awaken him to the fact that he is a man.The girlfriend is living with all sorts of characters. Everything seems to get in the way of their ill-fated romance including themselves. I guess because they seem to be mismatched that they wind up as a match in the end.The writing here is terribly stilted and the performances aren't that much better.

evanston_dad Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin play a most decidedly IMperfect couple in Robert Altman's version of a romantic comedy. His claim at the time (justified) is that Hollywood had always allowed only beautiful people to fall in love, so he wanted to make a romance with a couple of ordinary folk. He succeeded when he found the paunchy Dooley and the distractingly skinny (nearly anorexic) Heflin for his leads, but the film itself is not much of a success. This came out during Altman's "experimental" period, meaning he threw together some disparate elements and hoped for the best. Actually, it's quite accessible for Altman, considering "Quintet" came out in the same year, and it's one of his least Altman-like projects. Unfortunately, it's those very qualities that also make it one of his least interesting and ugliest from a purely visual standpoint.The film does boast some good if dated music though, performed by the real-life band Keepin' Em Off the Streets, led by Ted Neely, most known for playing the role of Jesus in the film version of "Jesus Christ Superstar" (and whom I saw perform the role on stage in a touring version).Grade: C

JessicaLeonhard Perhaps I'm part of a minority of film goers who seek out what is best in a film rather than what is worst, but it is now 26 years after the release of this film, and I'm still flipping through movie soundtracks at the local music stores, looking for the soundtrack to "A Perfect Couple". I still remember walking out of the theater at the end of watching this film when it was originally released, making a note to buy the soundtrack of the film, if not the film, itself, as soon as it was released. Sadly, it seems that neither have ever been released, and I, for one, have never seen the film show up on television, in spite of looking for the past 26 years. The music would have made a perfect film soundtrack, particularly because it was representative of a certain genre of music of the '70s. The film, itself, may not have been deserving of any awards, but it was certainly a great deal better than many of the films that have made it to video over the years. Sadly, the only way that a fan seems to be able to get a copy of the film is through the occasional EBAY sale of a bootlegged copy, which is of poor quality, but better than nothing until a legitimate version finally becomes available.