Barefoot in the Park Reviews

It never rises above the sitcom-level conceit of the original story, but with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, both impossibly attractive and achingly young, in the leads, does that really matter? The answer is, not entirely. They’re both cast to types which they would continue to play, both on and off the screen. Redford as the conservative WASP, the ideally gorgeous, wealthy man of a Park Avenue type’s dream, and Fonda as the more liberated, artistic and emotional free spirit, the manic-pixie dream girl to loosen his tie and add color to his beige lifestyle. They work opposite each other wonderfully, generating a chemistry which served them well in later projects.

There isn’t much meat to this thing; it’s a simple farce from Neil Simon, a puffy dessert – light and weightless. (Question for another time: why has so much of his work aged badly?) It’s not a very filling meal, but it’s a kind of guilty pleasure of mine. Charles Boyer gets a very fun role late in his career, and it’s moments like that which remind me of why I’ll stop and watch the film if it’s ever on TV and I need something fun in the background on while I fold laundry or do some dusting. The ‘jokes,’ of which there’s not that many funny ones, are thin and predictable, playing out exactly as one would imagine. It doesn’t help that Gene Saks never expands the story’s vocabulary beyond stagey, and we can clearly see the origins of this as a play. But no matter really, Barefoot in the Park is a featherweight sexy comedy about two incredibly attractive people with opposite personalities learning to navigate a relationship beyond the honeymoon phase. It doesn’t ask much, but it’s a load of fun and very likeable.