Actually, it was from the head as much as anything: a movie that arose from Francis Coppola’s shrewd, professional calculation that he could create and control an entire old-fashioned Hollywood romantic drama from his own studio, Zoetrope. The result was a lavish production which was very ambitious, hubristically or perhaps even ruinously so. But at the same time it looks oddly small scale, emotionally parochial and essentially monogamous – certainly a downshift from the colossal sweep of Apocalypse Now or The Godfather.
With its re-release now after more than 40 years, with six minutes added, One From the Heart reveals itself as a minor Coppola, but it is certainly a heartfelt romance-fantasia with charm and often a kind of goofy innocence; at one point the hero climbs a neon structure (that ubiquitous neon glow of 80s Hollywood) and gets electrified with his hair standing up, like a comic-book character.
The scene is a romanticised, almost dreamlike Las Vegas, where a couple live together in a little house off the Strip: this is Hank, played by Frederic Forrest, a regular working guy verging on some kind of Stanley Kowalski meltdown, and his girlfriend Frannie, played by Teri Garr. They are planning a celebration of their anniversary, which coincides with the fourth of July. But they are tense and it isn’t long before they are fighting. Hank has let himself go, putting on weight, while Frannie is svelte; and she poignantly reveals that she once believed when they started dating that he could change and mature and that he was nice – but he hasn’t changed and now he’s not even nice. (A weirdly real and sad description of a stagnant relationship within this stylised drama.) They reveal their various quasi-infidelities and Frannie storms out; in the swirl of Las Vegas, she has an adventure with wannabe lounge singer Ray (Raul Julia) who wants to fly off with her to Bora Bora. Hank meanwhile finds himself hooking up with an amazingly glamorous circus performer, Leila, played by Nastassja Kinski with great circus skills.
The film looks in some ways like a Hollywood escapist romp from the golden age, and there’s plenty to enjoy here, especially the sparkling emotional openness of Garr, who is a terrific natural dancer and seems always to be dancing, even when she isn’t. The affairs that Hank and Frannie have are not supposed to be innocent dalliances; that they have sex with other people is quite clear, but the sentimental gravity-force that’s going to bring them back to each other is clear as well.
An audience today, or in 1982, might wonder: these two other people don’t look so bad. Why not go to Bora Bora with Ray? Why not stay with the amazing Leila? Why this no-place-like-home attitude that’s going to yoke them back together? Well, Hank and Frannie are supposed to be essentially in love and these detours on love’s true path are meant to be learning experiences. But I found myself sufficiently disloyal to the film’s whole ethos as to suspect that Hank and Frannie are going to start arguing again pretty soon after the closing credits. I was rooting both of them to try to make it work with Leila and Ray, to try making the magic happen. After all, life is short. But there is a tender sweetness here.
