Enthusiastic young woman runs away to Chicago to start a new life. She is soon confronted with the emotional coldness of the big city and has to search for her place in the scheme of things.
A Date with a Lonely Girl, O Mundo Foi Minha Ilusão, Perdida en la ciudad, Tanja Baskin – Anruf genügt, Appuntamento con una ragazza che si sente sola, 孤独女孩日记
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Let’s for the sake of argument assume that at one time or another the American Dream did exist as it was pitched to us by either our or someone else’s middle-class parents, optimistic or naive (or both) schoolteachers, so-called “pillars of a community” or any of the myriad members of the generations before us who, whether out of pity, pith, or false pretense, is or was foolishly operating under the aforementioned bold but rather jejune notion that one might pack up, get out, move to the Big City and make your fame and fortune—masticate your piece of sweet apple pie and wash it down with a slosh of chilled Miller or lukewarm scotch.
I mean sure, you will have to…
T.R. Baskin instantly charmed me and I knew this would be one of my movies, the type that you hold dear and you're not exactly sure why. It also had me asking why it wasn't higher regarded, but then I remember it's called T.R. Baskin.
T.R. Baskin is actually the name of Candice Bergen, the titular character, and a wholly unique one. She's sort of a gender swapped archetype of the rebel without a cause, she's run off to Chicago to do she doesn't know what for she doesn't know how long. The strength of her character, and the movie itself, is her interactions with everyone around her who have no idea what to make of her. T.R. Baskin, the…
the framing device not particularly effective here, lending the film too neat an ending for what otherwise feels like a mostly excellent portrait of a person who hates themselves, and what's more, falls victim to the belief that if you move to a city you have to "be someone" vs. simply exist. still: Ross's Chicago of blues and grays and browns is pretty magnificent; there's no better place to feel miserable. I was living in my own undermarket studio in the fall of 2012 and huffing around in a big brightly colored scarf. you kinda can't beat that. always relieved when I watch a movie about a "woman figuring it out in the big city" and realie our problems are…
“You like tennis?”
“No, but I bowl a lot.”
Experiences like T.R. Baskin are precisely the reason why Fun City Editions are my favorite label running right now. A film I had never even heard of before they announced their release of it, and within ten minutes of starting it I was transported back to my days of being a teenager discovering my love of cinema for the first time and feeling like every new movie I watched was the greatest thing I had seen in my entire life. It’s an all too rare feeling to have now, but T.R. Baskin gave me exactly that same rush. That can’t leave my brain, still thinking about it at least once an…
no distances are closed, no barriers are broken -- you moved to the big city, but you didn't change your expectations, you held onto them like a half-sunken life-raft, as if they will save you -- what you really wanted was the space to settle into your disappointment with the state of things, with yourself.
you tread the surfaces of things, play at having relationships, look for any excuse to exit the daily scene -- if you make yourself opaque and unlovable, you'll never be out of control, you'll never be at risk of caring too much about who you are or who anyone else is.
your mother and father don't answer the phone any longer. they don't know where…
Disillusionment In Sun-Drenched 1970s American New Wave Cinema: A Watching Brief
T.R. Baskin is known in some regions as A Date with a Lonely Girl. Both titles are awful in completely different ways.
The film itself, however, patently is not. It's a very familiar tale in being about a small town woman who heads to the city to seek fortune, if not necessarily fame, but finds the urban life to be somewhat short of what she was hoping for or expecting.
I really, really like stories of urban alienation. A couple of years ago I read a book called The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing. It had quite a lot of really good…
This movie may have been completely forgotten by even the generation that made it, but that only makes it ripe for rediscovery. I had certainly never heard of it and didn't really know a thing about it until I sat down to watch it. It was full of surprises and a much darker and bolder vision than I typically associate with director Herbert Ross. Candice Bergen is also excellent in the title role. For years I thought that there wasn't much between her career gap of "Carnal Knowledge" and "Murphy Brown," but I've really enjoyed getting to know some of her less remembered film from the 70's and 80's, including "Getting Straight" and "Rich and Famous." I don't think any…
A 1970s gem set in Chicago. Candice Bergen’s character reminds me a bit of Holden Caulfield here. Hunting for something in life and hoping to find it but so sadly disillusioned too. Bergen has a cheeky mouth and such wit about her. I loved it and the sarcasm & cleverness had me in stitches.
She knows there are too many expectations in life and too much emphasis on fitting in. Life is unrealistic. Just march to the beat of your own drum. What I love about this film-it has a great cast and the dialogue truly shines. I wish more films like this existed. Very character driven and well written. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and it is one of my favorite…
T.R. Baskin is the godmother of all those people Greta Gerwig played and all those films Noah Baumbach made...still, I loved Peter Boyle in it.
A gorgeous character piece. Tender, funny, aching. Candice Bergen is astounding. Captures a lonely and lost feeling that really hit me. The framing device isn’t quite as great as the rest, but Bergen and Peter Boyle do have fantastic chemistry in those scenes. A 1970s gem.
Fun City Editions Blu-ray
This is phenomenal. It got horrible reviews upon its original release in 1971. Time has been incredibly kind to it. Candice Bergen, James Caan, and Peter Boyle are all so layered and likable and funny and real in this movie.
If you like Greta Gerwig or Noah Baumbach or Alexander Payne or Nicole Holofcener or Lena Dunham or Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World,” or if you’ve ever moved to a new city in your twenties and had no idea what you were doing, you will like this movie.
It’s been lovingly restored and released by Fun City Editions. Go buy it here:
“I hate Sunday, makes me feel like I haven’t done my homework.”
Candice Bergen is a stoic knockout slinging out quips at a rapid rate. Great character piece that probably didn’t need to do the whole “told through flashback” thing.
