Film: The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). Directed by Barbra Streisand. Screenplay by Richard LaGravenese. Based on the 1958 french film “Le Miroir à deux faces” written by André Cayatte / Gérard Oury.
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Jeff Bridges, Lauren Bacall, George Segal, Mimi Rogers, Pierce Brosnan, Brenda Vaccaro.
Music by: Marvin Hamlisch (Musical Score and Music Adaptation). Love theme: Barbra Streisand / Marvin Hamlisch / Robert John “Mutt” Lange and Bryan Adams. Love theme: “I Finally Found Someone”
The Plot:
Barbra Streisand — Pierce Brosnan
Rose was an English Literature Professor at Columbia University. Single and older that her sister, who is getting married with a guy Rose used to date. (Rose starts feeling old, ugly and sad about her loveless life.)
Jeff Bridges
Gregory is a Mathematics teacher who is looking for a relationship based on the intellectual rather than the physical, due to past frustrating experiences with his relationships with women. He ends up in one of Rose’s English Literature lectures about “chaste love in Literature” and conveniently misconstrues his own conclusions about what Rose was trying to convey during her teachings. They connect and begin dating, and get married, with the condition by Gregory that this will be a strictly platonic union. He was avoiding any chance for intimacy, for fear that if sex was involved, the relationship would not succeed.
Rose was unhappy and in need of feeling loved. She decides to do some self-improvement in her looks and starts exercising, dieting, updates her wardrobe and hair style. When Gregory notices her he feels that she is pushing him and forcing him to a step he does not want to take. She leaves him. As times passes they both realize that their mutual love has been hindered not by Rose’s appearance, but by Gregory’s unusual theories on marriage and sex, and finally recognize their deep affection for each other.
WATCH TRAILER:
Barbra Streisand
“The film approaches the subject of marriage warily and with wit, like a George Bernard Shaw play.
It’s rare to find a film that deals intelligently with issues of sex and love, instead of just assuming that everyone on the screen and in the audience shares the same popular culture assumptions.
It’s rare, too, to find such verbal characters in a movie, and listening to them talk is one of the pleasures of The Mirror Has Two Faces.
This is a moving and challenging movie.” — Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times
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Lauren Bacall’s performance earned praise, winning her the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also earned and Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Lauren Bacall
Awards and nominations:
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress — Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Barbra Streisand, nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress — Motion Picture (Lauren Bacall, winner)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (Marvin Hamlisch, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Lauren Bacall, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Original Song (nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Lauren Bacall, nominee)
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role — Motion Picture (Lauren Bacall, winner)
San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress (Lauren Bacall, winner)
Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress — Motion Picture (Lauren Bacall, winner)
Movie & Soundtrack:
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Buy Music: Amazon — The Mirror Has Two Faces
Buy Music: iTunes: — The Mirror Has Two Faces
Original music for the film was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.
(Hamlisch also worked in the musical adaptation for this film and collaborated
With Streisand and other musicians and songwriters during this production)
The music received a nomination for Best Original Score at the 54th Golden Globe Awards.
The soundtrack listing is here:
1. “Main Title / In Questa Reggia”
3. “An Ad?”
4. “In a Sentimental Mood” (Duke Ellington)
10. “A Funny Kind of Proposal”
13. “Try a Little Tenderness” — David Sanborn
14. “The Mirror”
17. “The Power Inside of Me” — Richard Marx
18. “Rose Leaves Greg”
19. “Ruby”
22. “The Apology / Nessun Dorma” — Luciano Pavarotti
23. “I Finally Found Someone” — Barbra Streisand & Bryan Adams, R J Lange and Marvin Hamlisch
24. “All of My Life”
Barbra Streisand
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