Pretty but bookish Lane is the daughter of an annoyingly pretentious socialite (Sally Kellerman) who is carrying on an open affair with jerk film director David Dukes. Kellerman has gone through several husbands. Her current one is kindly business executive Arthur Hill, whom Lane appears to love more than her own mother.
Bernard, the motherless son of a coarse taxi driver (Michel Michon), is an obsessive cinemaphile, and has apparently seen every film ever made despite being just 13 years old. Nonetheless, he finds time to court the willing Lane. Their romance has assistance from Lane's BFF Ashby Semple and elderly Laurence Olivier, who apparently has nothing else to do.
After Bernard manages to punch Dukes in the stomach, Kellerman forbids her daughter to see him. Instead, Lane and Bernard run away to Venice, Italy, to fulfill a romantic premise elaborated by con artist Olivier. Because it is a movie, there are no consequences for their actions, which allow all the leads to appear in the purported tearjerker finale.
How others will see it. A Little Romance is best known today as the debut feature of Diane Lane, who has aged well and worked steadily. Thelonious Bernard, on the other hand, barely had another speaking role.
The film was well received by critics, and won an Academy Award for its original score. Allan Burns' script was Oscar-nominated, and hammy Laurence Olivier received a supporting actor nod from the Golden Globes.
Most viewers are charmed by the performances of the three leads and the ultimately feel-good story. They look past the film's many dubious moments, and buy into the director's premise that fulfilling Olivier's invented romantic challenge supersedes any notion of responsible behavior.
As one might expect, women grade the film higher at imdb.com than do men, but the margin is unexpectedly slender (7.7 versus 7.5). Skepticism is greatest among men in their 30s (7.3) and from the most prolific imdb graders (6.5).
How I felt about it. There is much about this movie I dislike, and for this, I blame the director, George Roy Hill. He shamelessly plugs his two most famous movies (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting). He makes Kellerman so obnoxiously shallow that one wonders why Arthur Hill married her in the first place, much less makes a big speech to keep her near the end of the movie (Kellerman and Dukes uncharacteristically have no reply).
Perhaps the biggest eye roller, though, is the conversation between the very young Lane and Bernard about the pros and cons of French philosophers. Perhaps Bernard read his books while sitting in theaters waiting for a movie to begin.
Despite being such budding geniuses, Lane and Bernard are eager to put their parents, Olivier, and the French government through the wringer in order to share a kiss under practically the most difficult romantic scenario that can be devised (in a gondola, under a certain bridge, at a certain time, when certain bells are tolling). Too bad it wasn't raining and the bells remained silent.