One from the Heart

By VARIETY STAFF

Zoetrope. Director Francis Coppola; Producer Gray Frederickson, Fred Roos, Armyan Bernstein; Screenplay Armyan Bernstein, Francis Coppola; Camera Vittorio Storaro; Editor Arne Goursaud, Rudi Fehr, Randy Roberts; Music Tom Waits; Art Director Dean Tavoularis
 
Frederic Forrest
Teri Garr
Nastassja Kinski
Raul Julia
Lainie Kazan
Harry Dean Stanton
 

Francis Coppola's One from the Heart is a hybrid musical romantic fantasy, lavishing giddy heights of visual imagination and technical brilliance onto a wafer-thin story of true love turned sour, then sweet.

Set against an intentionally artificial fantasy version of Las Vegas - with production designer Dean Tavoularis' studio-recreated casino strip, desert outposts and even the Vegas airport easily the film's best-paid and most dazzling stars - the film quite simply plots the break-up, separate dalliances and eventual happy ending of a pair of five-year lovers (Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr) over the course of a single Independence Day.

He meets a sultry, exotic circus girl (Nastassja Kinski); she's swept away by a suave Latino singing waiter (Raul Julia).

With cheerful intermittent turns by Harry Dean Stanton as Forrest's best friend and partner, and Lainie Kazan as Garr's blowsy, sentimental barmaid buddy, the film's focus turns almost exclusively on Forrest's mounting efforts to win back Garr.

1982: Nomination: Best Original Song Score

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1982. Running time: 101 MIN.