#psychosexual

Diane Keaton in her finest dramatic showcase as tragic swinging schoolteacher Theresa Dunn in the darkly psychosexual character study Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977, Richard Brooks; featuring Richard Gere). Some notes on her performance:

“Diane Keaton projects the most electrifyingly explicit sexuality ever attained by an American actress in a psychologically plausible movie. In letting go she gives of herself much more freely than Brando did in Last Tango in Paris. She is such a knockout in every way that one regrets that the life of the character she plays has to go down the drain simply to be faithful to the stark outlines of the book. The fact remains that with Annie HallandLooking for Mr. Goodbar coming out the same year, Diane Keaton is clearly the most dynamic woman star in pictures. And any actress who can bring wit and humor to sex in an American movie has to be blessed with the most winning magic. We are not talking now of the warm, cuddly teddy-bear sex in Annie Hall, but the cold, hard, fleshy transactions in loveless lust of Looking for Mr. Goodbar.” — Andrew Sarris, Village Voice (October 1977) 

“The film is not judgmental of Theresa’s sexual voraciousness and pursuit of altered states of reality. Quite the contrary, it celebrates her libidinous drive and portrays her as happy and content with her life, except on the occasions when it starts to interfere with her day job. This has a lot to do with Keaton’s startling, orgasmic performance. For the only actor who refused to disrobe in the original Broadway production of Hair, Keaton certainly rises to the occasion here. Showing her breasts unselfconsciously, lifting up her skirt to expose her ass after she straddles her professor lover, she gives a performance of rare sexual frankness and sensuality. When the film really kicks in, following Theresa to a variety of smoky, crowded bars, scoring coke and dancing with the multicultural clientele, you get a genuine sense of the character’s carnal exuberance and exhilaration.” — Bruce LaBruce, “Bruce LaBruce’s Academy of the Underrated: Looking for Mr. Goodbar”,Talkhouse (July 2016) 

What’s in the box?