Mr-Fusion Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks: two very gifted actors in a movie that runs all over the road. "Nothing in Common" opens up with Hanks at maximum likability, his successful ad executive riding in on cocky youthful charm. His relationship with his coworkers is the stuff of dreams (or fiction), and he makes the job look fun. Which gives no indication as to just how no-nonsense this story will get. He's playing an only child who has to deal with his parents' sudden separation and father's failing health. In short, he brings his dramatic A-game (especially notable for being so early in his serious actor career). Gleason, for his part, is playing a character that's not all that easy to stomach (sometimes even hateful), but it's one hell of a performance. This movie is all about their struggling relationship, and both men make it work. It's the tone that's inconsistent; sometimes light, sometimes serious, with an ending that feels sugarcoated. The comedy feels at odds with the darker material.

SnoopyStyle David Basner (Tom Hanks) is a lovable cocky successful Chicago ad exec who just got promoted returning from vacation. He wants his boss Charlie Gargas (Hector Elizondo) to make him partner. Then his mother (Eva Marie Saint) leaves his father (Jackie Gleason). He must shuttle between his stubborn crass father, and his mother who is happy with her new found freedom. Donna Mildred Martin (Bess Armstrong) is his best friend and high school sweethearts. He is trying to land a big airline account and uses his charm on the owner Andrew Woolridge (Barry Corbin). He sleeps with the media director Cheryl Ann Wayne (Sela Ward) who turns out to be Woolridge's daughter. His father does nothing but complains and is struggling. Then he gets fired from his salesman job.This movie tries too hard to be jokey. Director Garry Marshall is allowing Hanks to clown around a little too much. The broad comedy doesn't quite fit seeing how he's suppose to be a professional sweet talking the client. He is playing strictly as a wild creative ad exec who jokes around. The broad jokes don't fit either when the movie tries to move into more serious territories. The serious stuff has a bit more heft and that's due to genius of Jackie Gleason. He and Hanks have pretty good chemistry. I also have a minor problem with the over-use of montages to drive the story forward. It's lazy writing.

pk-2 Someone mentioned about last night, which they also hated, well its the opposite for me. I was around the ages of the main characters when both these came out and liked both of them. In this movie, you sorta see the early goofy (but very Funny) Tom Hanks doing his transition to the more serious Hanks as the movie goes on. And pretty much was his last real comedy role. Hanks does his usual funny shtick and it works well. And Gleason is great, and sad as an aging ex great sales rep, trying to hang on to his cust. as a changing world leaves him without a place. And the divorce of Hanks Parents thrown in sorta makes this a bittersweet comedy. Overall, its a good movie.

FRDuplantier Sometimes it takes a great shock to remind us what our priorities should be. We may take offense at the suggestion that our ambitions, our lusts, and our greed are more important to us than the health and safety and happiness of our loved ones, but how often do we find ourselves acting as though they are? Sometimes the shock occurs in time for us to rearrange our priorities. Sometimes it comes too late, and we can only regret our foolishness.Garry Marshall's Nothing in Common concerns just such a shock. After 34 years of marriage, Lorraine Basner (Eva Marie Saint) leaves her husband Max (Jackie Gleason) because she can no longer tolerate his oppressive silence. Over the course of three decades he has treated her at best as a roommate, at worst as a handservant. Their marriage is barren, devoid of affection and intimacy. Aside from their son David, they have nothing in common anymore.Max is devastated by his wife's departure, and too proud to admit it. He would like nothing better than for her to return, but he is unwilling -- perhaps unable -- to protest his love. The shock has come too late for Max and Lorraine, and the blame belongs to both of them. Max has indeed treated his wife shamefully, but she in turn has put up with it. Thirty-four years is a long time to wait before lodging a serious complaint.The shock has come just in time for David Basner (Tom Hanks), the clever young adman always ready with a line -- for a client, for a girl. He lives a life of constant change, moving blithely from one presentation or seduction to the next, putting together a reel of 60-second commercials and 90-minute relationships as he goes. In his preoccupation with the surfeit of choices in his smorgasbord life, he has denied himself the opportunity to get to know his parents as people and deprived them of the one thing they still have in common, their son. The shock of their separation reminds him that he is neglecting his responsibility to his parents; the discovery that his father will require life-threatening surgery gives added urgency to his renewed interest in their lives.The shock also gives him pause to reflect on the shape of his own life, to recognize that he has nothing in common with the sleeping partners he picks out like actresses at a cattle call and that the childhood sweetheart with whom he can identify may not be available forever.Nothing in Common is an adult movie in the true sense of the term. It offers a mature treatment of a subject of extreme importance to adults in a country racked by divorce. It does not resort to nudity, coarse language, or superficial sociological dialogue. It presents the breakup of a marriage as an unmitigated tragedy, not as a grand opportunity for the exploration of narcissism (as is the case with such shallow contemporary films as An Unmarried Woman). It resolutely rejects the irresponsible and amoral lifestyle celebrated in so much of modern culture, and it encourages us to do likewise, by giving us an honest picture of it. Nothing in Common is an adult movie with a PG rating, a fine cast of characters, a skillful director, and an important story to tell.