A Small Circle of Friends (1980)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Movie that takes place at Harvard University in Cambridge MA from 1967 to 1971. Three students are starting at Harvard. Nick (Jameson Parker)-tall, handsome, muscular and serious; Leo (Brad Davis) a rebel who lashes out at everything) and Jess (Karen Allen) a sweet, serious and intelligent woman. Both Nick and Leo fall in love with Jess at various times and the film follows them through the four years at school and we see them change--in good ways and bad.This was filmed in Cambridge back in 1979. I remember because I grew up in Arlington--a town that borders Cambridge. I know what Harvard Square and Harvard University looked like back then and it was really great to see it captured on film. Also we see the great Orson Welles Cinema that was in Cambridge--a wonderful art house theatre that burnt down in 1985. I remember catching in a totally empty movie theatre in Boston back in 1980. The fact that it was locally filmed was advertised to the hilt--but nobody came. I can't see why because I LOVED it. I found it totally believable with interesting characters and situations. Seeing it again now all these years later I'm not as totally impressed with it as before. I found the situations and dialogue clichéd and too many unexplained events--WHY was that building chained shut at Harvard and the lottery wasn't explained either. Also, sadly, Parker is a terrible actor. He's tall, handsome and muscular but says every line with a blank look on his face. I seriously didn't know HOW to take some of his dialogue! Still, I DO like the film and recommend it. Allen and Davis give GREAT performances; it moves quickly (I was never once bored); the scenery is beautiful; the music score was incredible (it includes an instrumental of "Total Eclipse of the Heart") and it all ends in a totally unrealistic but happy ending. A must see for any Massachusetts residents who love Boston and Cambridge. Also future stars Daniel Stern and Shelley Long have small roles.

any baby boomer who lived through- and went to college during the late 60s will identify with this charming movie. The Motown music, the parties, waiting breathlessly glued to the TV set watching the draft lottery, the protests, ....oh, and the romances!...I have never seen a movie that captured that very special time better. You will fall in love with these characters who could have been your own friends and classmates. And you will almost wish to be back in that situation again. Because even though it was scary and painful, what some of us did, collectively, changed history, and that is an empowerment that is hard to come by these days. The movie does not strike me as dated, even though it authentically recreates the look and feel of the era. Today's 'young people' should discover this movie, and us aging folks should enjoy it again.

In spite of the new (2005) terrible film STEALTH directed by the same director of this film....I give this film TWO THUMBS UP.This movie rang a bell during the military draft lottery scene; my number was 316, NOT ELIGIBLE for military service. A guy I knew then got #1: Sept 14.The very last scene is great when two good old friends find themselves years after college, each with a profession and one with a divorce already under her belt and they decide to "see what happens" now.Very rational and smart decision.

The most resonant element of director Rob Cohen's film is the music score by Jim Steinman, which includes the melody that was later recorded as Total Eclipse of the Heart. Otherwise this tale of a supposed menage-a-tois between Harvard university students Brad Davis, Karen Allen and Jameson Parker is as dramatic as the cartoon opening and closing sketches. The screenplay by Ezra Sacks attempts coverage of the Vietnam era from 1967 to 1971 from a student activist point of view, but the tri-romance hardly seems from the same era since it isn't until towards the end that there is any suggestion of bigamy. There is also even less suggestion of homosexuality interest between Davis and Parker. When the 3 finally go into the same bedroom, the camera is left outside and the door closed. Their lack of involvement in activism is paralled with the radicalisation of a Texan boy scout who comes to Harvard at the same time and ends up a terrorist, and highlighted by a campus riot that comes out of nowhere. Even the Vietnam connection as a comment on the relationship and vice versa doesn't work. Sacks opens with Parker reuniting with Allen in "the present"before we start flashbacking to 1967, with Davis' absence pre-empting the outcome, and Cohen supplies matching love scene montages. Davis' has steam so apparently is more erotic and ends abruptly, whilst Parker's is set to Chances Are and ends more positively. Sacks has 2 lines I liked - a technique of breaking into a glass window "I saw it on I Spy or was it The Untouchables", though Cohen repeats it, and "Only men would come up with a draft lottery using balls". Utilising period TV and photographic images - the assassinations of the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King - and a series of bad wigs, the only sense of reality and truth comes in a moment when someone sings the Star Spangled Banner to TV closure. Davis has the impossible charming/wild man role, not helped by his looking older than the others, and the best he can do is stare child-like for vulnerability. Allen doesn't have a strong screen persona so it's easy to think one is watching Amy Irving or Janet Margolin or Brooke Adams. Of the 3, Parker probably comes off best even when saddled with a Colonel Sanders look. His character's basic dullness is probably the reason he needs to be reunited with Allen. Even when the competition is Davis, anyone that prefers to experiment with rats rather than go to an Ingmar Bergman film is definitely worth reconsidering as a partner. Watch for Shelley Long as a photographer, and Daniel Stern, billed as Dan.