Portnoy of the movie is simply a morass of frantic dialog, clumsily photographed. The Sophie Portnoy of Roth's novel was at least a recognizable caricature. And what's maybe even worse, it takes the most cherished of all Jewish stereotypes-the Jewish mother-and gets it wrong. The movie has no heart and little apparent sympathy with its Jewish characters it replaces Roth's cynical and carefully aimed satire with a bunch of offensive one-liners, and it uses the cover of a best seller to get away with ethnic libels that entirely lose their point out of Roth's specific context. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "a true fiasco" and added, In contrast to Goodbye, Columbus, which did well at the box office and was liked by critics, this second attempt at Roth bombed miserably. He repeatedly seems to recall, traumatically, her suicide by jumping off a building after a fight with him but the end of the film shows him walking away from his therapist's office, and just missing, in the New York street crowd, Mary Jane, who is walking in the other direction and still alive, putting into question the entire narrative Portnoy gave his therapist. Mary Jane seemingly is the girl of Portnoy's dreams, but as their relationship deepens and she begins to pressure him into giving her a ring, he shrinks from making a permanent commitment to her.
Via flashbacks, we learn about his affairs with Bubbles Girardi, the daughter of a local hoodlum leftist Israeli Naomi, whom he attempts to rape and gentile Mary Jane Reid, whose nickname "Monkey" reflects her remarkable agility at achieving a variety of sexual positions. The film focuses on the trials and tribulations of Alexander Portnoy, a Jewish man employed as the assistant commissioner of human opportunity for New York City.ĭuring a session with his psychoanalyst (who never speaks during the film), he explores his childhood, his relationship with his overbearing mother, his sexual fantasies and desires, his problems with women, and his obsession with his own religion.
His screenplay is based on the bestselling 1969 novel of the same name by Philip Roth. Portnoy's Complaint is a 1972 American comedy film written and directed by Ernest Lehman.
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