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Methinks the story of love the second time around has run its course for awhile. Recently, there was 
Andie MacDowell and her younger beau (a church organist) in Crush. In 2001, there was Innocence about love in the geriatric age again with church organist. Now comes Never Again, which could be termed a shock film for both men and women past fifty, in which one of the members of the twosome thinks they may be gay and both are afraid to fall in love again. After this, there may not be anything original under the sun in loveland including love with an alien (that was covered in Starman).

Never Again begins with widowed Jill Clayburgh returning to an empty apartment after leaving her daughter at college. In the meantime, Jeffrey Tambor breaks up with his girlfriend and looks depressed. He is divorced, never sees his son, owns an exterminating service and regularly visits his caustic-mouthed mother. Advice from Jill's girlfriends (Caroline Aaron and Sandy Duncan) leads her to a video dating service while Tambor attempts a meeting with a gay man (watch for a cameo by Michael McKean here). Neither situation is handled well, but soon the audience sees this is a set-up for Jeffrey and Jill to meet in a bar. Once they meet, there is mutual attraction and sex but problems occur when their friends and family find out about the dating couple. 

Never Again doesn't concern itself with safe sex, and the audience can see the set ups to humorous situations for this couple a mile away. Clayburgh's family meet Tambor under embarrassing conditions and his mother gets laughs when they visit Clayburgh together, who thinking Tambor was coming there alone, dresses in a dominatrix outfit. What could have been a thoughtful, rich story of two opposites ends up being a good-grief-what-will-happen-next story of two actors in embarrassing situations. 

Jill Clayburgh is a dramatic actress and she faces the camera as though ready to talk to a jury. The lady looks fabulous but she is wasted here. Jeffrey Tambor has done many comic roles but seeing him being romantic in underwear takes some getting used to. His gruff voice makes endearments sound like they are wrested from within and not genuine. Dolores McDougal steals her scenes as a mother who can't utter a sentence without a curse word in it. It is actor/director Bill Duke, as Tambor's close friend, who is the glue holding the film together. His observations on life bring clarity to the film, as does the music played by he and Tambor as a jazz duo in a nightclub.

Never Again could have been an interesting and vibrant film but instead turns into a raunchy movie.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner 7/19/2002