Having watched director Herbert Ross's "T. R. Baskin" twice now, I still have no idea why the filmmaker was drawn to the material or why Paramount gave it the green light. Written by the otherwise-astute Peter Hyams, our titular heroine is rather the antithesis of TV's Mary Richards: she's not about to turn the world on with her smile. An escapee from a small town in Ohio, T. R. arrives in Chicago and is immediately taken advantage of by her cab driver from the airport (but nothing is built upon this--it's just shrugged off). She finds a boring job and a boring apartment, she goes out on a boring blind date--the only thing missing is a boring cat. Played by Candice Bergen, T. R. Baskin isn't pithy or wise: she's deadpan nearly throughout. I assume Hyams meant her cynicism to be blunt and amusing, but Ross doesn't ask Bergen to deliver anything more than a sketch of the character (we get nothing about her background save for a phone call home to mom). The film's framing device is deadly: an ex-Army man (a young James Caan), who insulted T. R. after a roll in the hay, sets up her with a married man in Chicago on business. This plot device makes absolutely no sense, and Ross skitters over it, perhaps shamefacedly. Fortunately, the married man is played Peter Boyle, and he emerges as the star of the picture. With his pearly-pink skin, shy smile and alert eyes, it's obvious the movie should have centered on Boyle's would-be philanderer rather than on Bergen's squinting/suspicious working girl. T. R. Is disappointed by life; she finds the Windy City an alienating place, she's in danger of being swallowed up by the anonymity of city living, but will she fight her predicament or simply surrender to it? We don't know because Ross and Hyams want to keep T. R. a floating question-mark. Had T. R. been a tough little nut, we might have had something to respond to; instead, she only comes to life with a case of the giggles in bed, and even then we don't really know why she's laughing. ** from ****
Review of T.R. Baskin
