MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Used People’ a Charming, Witty Fairy Tale

“Used People” (AMC Century 14) is set in 1969 Queens, and the movie makers let us breathe it all in. Delicatessens, parks, cozy little ristorantes, family squabbles, the Amazin’ Met stretch drive blaring from TVs and radios, and a honey of sunlight on the streets: That’s how the late ‘60s are seen. And watching the care and delight with which this past is recaptured can give us a sweet little buzz. The movie is goofy and charming. It pleases and delights, salts up its reveries with just enough wit to keep them from going sappy.

The writer, Todd Graf, used family memories for his affectionate fantasia of a script: a romantic comedy-drama about a Jewish widow who suddenly finds herself pursued by an impassioned Italian neighbor who’s worshiped her from afar for decades. This widow, Pearl Berman (Shirley MacLaine) is outwardly no-nonsense, insular; she’s lived her life in a circle of friends and family, has no intention of venturing beyond. Her would-be old Lochinvar, Joe Meledandri (Marcello Mastroianni) is a fulsome, deeply generous restaurateur who, unknown to Pearl, saved her marriage decades back by teaching her late husband to dance.

Joe and Pearl are a mismatch, but that only fuels Joe’s careening passion. He campaigns not only to win Pearl but the entire Berman family: her frustrated, trapped daughter Bibby (Kathy Bates), her skeptical mother Freida (Jessica Tandy), her schizophrenic glamour-puss daughter Norma (Marcia Gay Harden) and Norma’s even more disturbed 12-year-old son, Swee’Pea (Matthew Branton), who, believing he turned into Superboy after his grandpa’s death, tests his invulnerability on third rails and tall buildings.

There’s depth--but not too much--in Graf’s portrayals of this group. Yet the very plenitude of personalities gives “People” texture. Joe, the romantic catalyst, who wakes and shakes them all up, is the peacemaker. Jessica Tandy kibitzes--she’s been charmingly paired with Sylvia Sydney as a kvetching comic chorus--and the always emotionally naked Kathy Bates puts Bibby through affecting changes.

In the early 1980s, as if by executive order, older people tended to vanish from American movies--unless they were grouches, sight gags, last-minute Santas, or, as in “Cocoon,” merry-making, break-dancing fools. That’s why the core of “Used People” is pleasing: This movie romance for a 69-year-old leading man and a leading lady in her 50s, in which the participants can actually be sexy, in which Mastroianni gets impassioned and impulsive, and MacLaine can break up Pearl’s composed exterior, show her cleavage and get coolly flirtatious--without either of them condescending or making their roles cutely or coyly “used.” “Used People” is a fairy tale--nothing like this ever happened to Freida Graf, Todd’s grandmother--but it’s grounded in a convincingly detailed milieu.

It helps to have, as the immovable object and irresistible force, MacLaine and Mastroianni, whose long sex symbol status puts a perfume on their parts. Mastroianni has long since replaced either Valentino or the real-life Casanova as the world’s image of the romantic Italian, but his awkward English stopped him from an American breakthrough. Here, it doesn’t matter. He’s lit up Joe’s interior so wildly and warmly that we don’t question why decades in Queens haven’t eroded that accent. And, although MacLaine makes Pearl a character part, a little pinched, severe and held-back, she puts a jolt of sensuality behind it; her image of the sexy, resilient imp keeps blazing underneath. In some ways, this may be her best movie vehicle since “Terms of Endearment,” and her acting matches the chance.

The director of “Used People,” 30-year-old Beeban Kidron, who made last year’s fine female buddies comedy “Antonia and Jane,” has a distinctive, intelligent comic style that irradiates the movie. She knows how to build the right pauses and rhythms, load up her frames, let her cast relax into their best styles. Her collaborators--cinematographer David Watkin, production designer Stuart Wurtzel and the others--are all expert, and her composer, Rachel Portman, bathes the scenes in wistful and summery, semi-pastiche Debussy melodies that wryly underscore the bittersweet fun.

It’s hard to imagine another director doing a more loving, thorough job with this material, and anyone who dislikes “Used People” (MPAA-rated PG) may simply feel that the cast’s star power overwhelms an essentially delicate piece. It doesn’t; this cast brings “Used People” alive. . It’s the sort of movie, floating on its sweet, drizzly cloud of nostalgia and wish-fulfillment, that puts a dreamy smile on your face.

‘Used People’

Shirley MacLaine: Pearl Berman

Marcello Mastroianni: Joe Meledandri

Jessica Tandy: Freida Berman

Kathy Bates: Bibby Berman

A Lawrence Gordon/JVC Entertainment presentation of a Largo Entertainment production, released by 20th Century Fox. Director Beeban Kidron. Producer Peggy Rajski. Executive producers Lloyd Levin, Michael Barnathan. Screenplay by Todd Graf. Cinematographer David Watkin. Editor John Tintori. Costumes Marilyn Vance-Straker. Music Rachel Portman. Production design Stuart Wurtzel. Art director Gregory Paul Keen. Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.