HeartBurn (1986) is a memorable movie directed by the great Mike Nichols. Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson were brilliant. Their characters were based on real life Nora Ephron and her then husband Carl Bernstein who was the famous journalist from Watergate along with his partner Woodward. Nora Ephron was also the screenwriter for this wonderful movie which was based on her book of the same name. She later went on to do other amazing movies such as “When Harry Met Sally”, “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle”.
Knowing the story was based on real life makes the experience all the more exciting and enjoyable. It’s a bit voyeuristic watching a happy marriage totally disintegrate before your very eyes as you watch the lying, cheating philandering husband betray his devoted wife. Heck, it kinda reminded me of watching Bill and Hillary Clinton, only they’ve stayed together!
I love this movie and hope you check it out some rainy day. Great performances and a touching story of finding the strength to carry on when someone totally nukes the dreams you had together. I’ve been a fan of Nora’s ever since this movie.
Here’s the wonderful Carly Simon song “Coming Around Again” that was the theme for the movie. There are photos from the movie in the video.
The other great song from the movie is a version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” by Carly Simon which comes at the end of the movie as Meryl Streep sings it to her daughter and the magnitude and profound meaning of the simple nursery rhyme hit her hard. Such a powerful and wonderful message for us all. Even when our entire world comes crashing down around us we need to be like that spider and just start rebuilding. After all, that is the human spirit.
The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again
Here’s Carly Simon’s music video version
