MOVIE REVIEW : Inspired Casting in ‘Only the Lonely’

John Candy has the face of a jolly little scamp who’s somehow ballooned to Goodyear girth; for all his Homeric dimensions, he’s often best in roles which suggest he hasn’t quite grown up--and maybe never will.

Maureen O’Hara, on the other hand, seemed mature when she was 18. Hollywood’s ultimate fiery colleen, she has a classic chiseled Irish beauty and a thinly strapped temper that erupted smashingly into scathing tantrums or roundhouse rights.

Casting these two together in “Only the Lonely” (citywide) as Danny and Rose Muldoon--a 38-year-old bachelor Chicago cop and his domineering, violently opinionated mom--might seem something of a stunt. But it turns out to be an inspired notion. Candy, despite a few strained motormouth speeches, radiates comic sweetness, gentleness and affability. And O’Hara, in her first movie since 1971, makes a genuinely spectacular comeback, magically retaining most of her star presence and glamour and translating it fully into Rose: a tough, unsentimental depiction of implacable mother-love. Their pairing may be the only notion in the movie that really is inspired.

This is writer-director Chris Columbus’ first film after mega-hit “Home Alone,” and it’s a simpler, quieter effort, a try at a humane, mostly naturalistic comedy without too many tricks or stunts. And without tricks or stunts, Columbus is sometimes at a loss. He’s been a prodigy at mining pop archetypes, evoking middle-American feelings. That and his crisp, clean construction--especially in “Gremlins” (which he wrote, but didn’t direct) and “Home Alone” (which he directed, but didn’t write)--has made his fortune.

But in “Only the Lonely,” he is trying for something closer to life, and he gets caught in a limbo between archetypal comedy and TV drama naturalism. There’s a lot of dead air, sonically and emotionally, in both the interior and exterior scenes. The comedy often isn’t gusty enough, the realism doesn’t probe deeply.

He has chosen O’Hara because of her performance in John Ford’s great comedy-romance “The Quiet Man”; tunnel-vision Rose is descended from that movie’s feisty heroine, Mary Kate Danaher. And he probably wants something like Ford’s style as well: with its poetic stock characters, classical construction and “invisible editing.”

The actors are more than up to this. The script isn’t. It’s too tentative, ununified. The comic machismo of the Candy-Jim Belushi scenes suggest the usual buddy-buddy cop movie; the model for the fumbling romance between Danny and introverted undertaker’s daughter Theresa (Ally Sheedy) probably is Paddy Chayefsky’s “Marty”; in the barroom scenes with two comic-lyrical old bachelors (Milo O’Shea and Bert Remsen), we’re back to Ford.

Columbus is a kind of movie pack rat, but he lets his influences take him over too much: even producer John Hughes, who helps carry him back into Hughes territory, Chicago. Only the mother-son dialogues have a strong individual core and tone. Though Columbus has touched on this kind of relationship before, in his worst movie, “Heartbreak Hotel,” he has put much more feeling into the Danny-Rose scenes. Candy and O’Hara repay him by pulling it all out.

Paradoxically, if the movie were funnier, if it unleashed more of the material’s comic possibilities--Danny’s constant fears about his mother, his dread at her discovery of his affair with Theresa--it would probably move us more.

Great films have been made on this kind of subject, but Columbus may be hampered by the fact that, right now, there is not much tradition of humane, naturalistic family movie comedy functioning in America. Even so, “Only the Lonely” (rated PG-13 for sensual situations and language) has something: the performances of O’Hara, Candy, Belushi, Sheedy and Anthony Quinn (as an amorous neighbor) are alone enough to recommend it. It’s not the gem it wants to be, but it’s good in comparison to many of the sensation-hungry pictures around it; it’s not just a movie only a mother could love.

‘Only the Lonely’

John Candy: Danny Muldoon

Maureen O’Hara: Rose Muldoon

Ally Sheedy: Theresa Luna

Anthony Quinn: Nick

A 20th Century Fox presentation of a Hughes Entertainment production. Director/screenplay Chris Columbus. Producer John Hughes, Hunt Lowry. Executive producer Tarquin Gotch. Cinematographer Julio Macat. Editor Raja Gosnell. Costumes Mary E. Vogt. Music Maurice Jarre. Production design John Muto. Art director Dan Webster. Set designers Bill Arnold, Gary Baugh, Karen Fletcher-Trujillo. Set decorator Rosemary Brandenburg. With Jim Belushi, Milo O’Shea, Kevin Dunn. Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13 (sensual situations, language).