seymourblack-1 "The Morning After" is a murder mystery that features romance, blackmail and suspense but it's the relationship between the story's two leading characters that provides the main focus of the action and also most of the humour and interest that make this movie so enjoyable to watch. Its opening scene is really intriguing and sets the story up brilliantly. What follows is loosely based on "The Blue Gardenia" (1953) and like its predecessor, this movie features a woman who was with a murder victim on the night he died, awakens the next morning unable to remember what happened and then has to put her trust in someone of whom she's not certain.Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda) is an alcoholic ex-actress who wakes up in a strange bed next to the corpse of a man she doesn't know and has no memory of how she got there. She's immediately convinced that the police won't believe her story because she has a history of becoming violent and suffering blackouts after her drinking binges and had even stabbed her first husband with a paring knife during one of her blackouts. In her panic, Alex heads to the airport but can't get out of L.A. because it's the Thanksgiving holiday and all the flights are booked. Feeling desperate and anxious, she gets involved in a car accident and races away from the scene into a nearby parking lot where she meets Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges).In her efforts to escape the other irate drivers involved in the car accident, Alex gets into Turner's car and together they drive away from her pursuers. Turner's an easy-going, bigoted, ex-cop who says "I like to repair stuff, whatever people are through with" and works mainly on small appliances like toasters. Turner and Alex gradually get to know each other and fall in love. She doesn't know whether or not she was responsible for the dead man's murder and he tries to help her to solve the mystery. The problem is she isn't sure whether or not she can trust him, especially as her estranged husband Joaquin "Jacky" Manero (Raul Julia), who's a very successful hairdresser in Beverly Hills, warns her that Turner is actually trying to frame her. Alex and Turner stick together and eventually discover who the murderer is and also the extent to which blackmail was involved in the crime."The Morning After" makes a strong impression visually with good use being made of interesting locations and a colour palette that uses a range of pastels quite effectively. The scene in which Alex escapes from the apartment where the killing had taken place is particularly memorable because at a time when she's feeling desperate and scared, being situated in a highly lit, deserted-looking street in which she's dwarfed by the structures around her, really emphasises her plight and reinforces the impression that, in these very open surroundings, there really is no hiding place.Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges are both exceptional in this movie and the chemistry between them is the icing on the cake. Fonda (in an Oscar nominated role) makes Alex's combination of toughness, vulnerability and self-doubt totally believable and Bridges is wonderfully subtle in a performance that creates a lot of distrust about how sincere he is in his concern for Alex's predicament. The dialogue they share is also superb and some of Alex's cutting remarks really sting.There's a great deal to enjoy in "The Morning After" and the whole experience of watching it is extremely entertaining. Its only disappointment, however, is the resolution to the mystery which, unfortunately, isn't up to the standard of everything else that precedes it.

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) Would you ever think that Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges had chemistry on screen? Well if you want to see it then you won't really find it here. What you will find is good performances from the two, but with a fairly weak script and a story that mildly entertains. The Morning After is the story about a washed up actress who wakes up with a hangover next to a dead man one morning. She has no recollection of the previous night and no idea what to do with herself in this situation. She finds help from a mysterious young man named Turner Kendall, played by Jeff Bridges, but suspense and mystery build as her situation becomes increasingly dire. She doesn't know if this strange Turner character is a blessing or a curse and whether she should trust him, or be deathly afraid of him. And so the mystery begins in this halfway decent suspense thriller of which there's not a whole lot to say.The Morning After is helped by strong performances and an engaging story that leads you on to want to know the outcome. It is hurt by a weak script and the lack of originality it faces in its midsection. It starts out strong, opening with Jane Fonda's character waking up in bed next to a man with a knife in his chest. She panics and leaves the apartment she is in and tries to get her situation under control before she decides what to do with the body. During this panic she meets Turner, and this is where the mystery begins.The film builds its suspense nicely, but after a while it starts to flat line and doesn't get any more interesting until the end. A romance begins between Fonda and Bridges, not unexpectedly to say the least, and for a while nothing much happens. The two characters are developed and their relationship grows, but after a while it becomes redundant and their back stories don't end up being all that creative. Fonda is an actress who used to be big and has now fallen into obscurity. Bridges was a big shot cop who suffered an injury and is now a nobody. These character profiles are important to the overall arc of the story, but they don't make our two main characters all too interesting, leading the film as a whole to not be all too interesting. Plus, we have a script that leaves a lot to be desired. But when the film finally comes to its conclusion it isn't something I saw coming, but in retrospect I probably should have been able to see it from a mile away. I can, however, give the movie credit for having a very exciting climax, but that leads into a final scene which wraps the film up a little too nicely.When you get right down to it, The Morning After is just sort of there. It isn't great, it isn't terrible, but it isn't something I will remember. I won't be thinking about this film in a few weeks and I might not even remember watching it. It's a movie that tells a mildly interesting story with mildly interesting characters played by great actors. It's more or less your typical suspense thriller, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's really nothing here that is going to stick with me.

jzappa The Morning After opens with an extraordinarily effective scene prototypical of director Sidney Lumet's pared-down building of tension. As Jane Fonda crawls out of bed, we sense her hangover, one of those inordinately miserable mornings when nothing about you is sufficiently functional, and we also sense how accustomed she's become to these mornings as she is not only passably functional but also recognizes herself in the mirror and indeed spills some gin into a glass, speculating about the guy in her bed. Who is he? She doesn't comprehend the true gravity of her predicament until she turns him onto his back. She sees no cop is going to buy her story, so she attempts to remove all the evidence of her stopover. And then she rambles back out, into the intense Los Angeles light. And in a shot from high overhead, she seems like a lab rat, ensnared in some sort of a experiment. It's so well directed that we almost forget how preposterous it is to think this frame-up would ever work. This beginning promises an exceptional thriller. Alas, The Morning After never matches its initial potential, not as a thriller, at least. The narrative has some gaping disparities in it, and thrillers need to be impermeable. This one chalks various elements up to pure coincidence, the ultimate motives are flimsy at best and the fact that the body keeps reappearing like a cartoon or a take-off on The Trouble with Harry brings the movie too close to qualifying as '80s schlock for one to become seriously absorbed in the plot. But The Morning After merits a look anyhow, owing to the characters that it cultivates, and the performances of Fonda and Jeff Bridges in the two leads. She plays an alcoholic actress long past her heyday. He plays an ex-cop who happens to be fixing his car right where she topples into his back seat and implores him to get her away from there, quick. Bridges stays in a petty, manufactured shed, where he repairs appliances. This is all Fonda needs. She's a veteran of the live-fast-die-young subscription, her friends all bartenders and drag queens, her separated husband Raul Julia the most upmarket hairdresser in Beverly Hills. Nevertheless Bridges is reliable and sound, and she could do with a friend. Naturally it's axiomatic that they fall in love. The plot of The Morning After is not nearly as well captured or interesting as the day-by-day grinds of these characters. Actually, I can picture a movie that would omit the murder and just trail the genuine human development between Fonda and Bridges. The thriller filler isn't needed, although given that they used it, couldn't they have made it credible? The entire murder plot gets such slapdash treatment that perhaps I oughtn't have been startled by the big scene in which the killer's exposed. I've seen innumerable revelations in innumerable thrillers, but seldom one as transparent as this one, where the surprises are just announced in an improbable monologue. Indeed, the fact that nearly every opinion I've heard or read of this film seems unanimous in terms of James Hicks' script, including mine, even down to the 'It starts off well but then it gets really forced and jerry-built' gist, it seems pretty clear-cut what makes the film not quite work, though it'd be a misstep to write this movie off simply because the story is so rickety. It's worth making an allowance for due to the performances. Fonda and Bridges are superb in the film, and their rapport, founded on skeletons in the cupboard, bitterness and ulterior motives, gets especially remarkable. They create tangible unspoken feelings together, and they have some dialogue that feels more alive than most starry-eyed chatter in the movies. Before the schmaltzy final scene, not even close to prototypical of Lumet, there's a single shot in which all Bridges and Fonda do is face each other, and we know, and fee, that they want to have sex with each other. It's just energy, and it works wonders. I also admire how Lumet reinforces every color. Living in Los Angeles is part of the debilitating influence on the character played by Jane Fonda. All color is exaggerated: red redder, blue filters, orange hazes. He creates an L.A. comprised of vast flat surfaces of pastels and aggressively sunlit exposed areas. He traps the inebriated Fonda on this landscape like a helplessly insignificant insect sought for squashing by unknown feet, and the imagery makes the whole first hour of the movie much more ominous than it merits. Too bad they couldn't have take steps with the script.

ryancm For what it is, MORNING AFTER is good, but could have been great with a sturdier screen play. Interesting premise, but somehow it really doesn't take off. The ending is denouncement is convoluted and not very satisfying. Hard to believe that what happened actually happened! One major error is when Jeff Bridges leaves Jane Fonda off and she goes back into the loft. Bright daylight. When she enters its completely dark out as she closes the drapes. Bad continuity. This is basically a two character movie, maybe three with the Raoul character. Noboby else has anything than a bit. Look close for Kathy Bates before she hit it big. All toll, worth a look, but don't think too hard.