Cheap Circle of Two (Video) (Jules Dassin) Price

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Customer Reviews of Circle of Two

His character has morals and values and that is why he takes the high road and turns down the love from a younger woman, not quite of legal age, despite the fact that her love brings him to life again as an artist. He honors and respects the American culture of age appropriateness and for that his character becomes even more endearing to me. He's a safe man for a young girl to have a crush on.

Tatum ONeal is fabulous in this story, playing well beyond her years in maturity... and I will never forget the look on her face in the busy streets of New York as she slowly walks away and stands there as Ashley sticks to his resolve to send her back home after she shows up without his invitation all alone to confront her love for him.

Love is like that sometimes, it makes no sense, but in the end, if it's love, it always does the right thing and that's what I love about this movie.

Deary Canadian Pedophilia
Tatum O'Neal never fulfilled the promise of her first, delightful role as a child actor in Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. Although she grew into a pleasant looking teenager, some unwise forces -- parents? agents? -- allowed or pushed her into "sexy" roles in terrible pictures like this and 1980's Little Darlings. There seemed to be a very unwholesome interest back in the late 70s/early 80s in pre-teen girl sexuality -- look at movies like these and Brook Shield's Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon. I don't think you could get away with this kind of leering nonsense in today's climate of greater sensitivity towards child molestation, Jon-Benet Ramsey, etc.

Not too surprisingly, this low budget Canadian mishmash was directed by an older (French) director. It's the ultimate in fantasy for a late middle-aged male -- that a nubile teenager would fall in love with you and throw herself at you (and you of course would heroically refuse to have sex with her). Also that it would rejuvenate you not only romantically and personally, but professionally as well.

Aside from Ms. O'Neal's horribly leaden and awkward performance, there is so much that is wrong and off-key here -- a dreadful script full of lame dialogue and pontification, implausible situations and a cast of supporting actors who look like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Tatum O'Neal (Sarah) is supposed to be a 15 year old girl -- which she probably was at the time of the filming -- but she dresses like an middle-aged woman in loose blouses, dressy shoes and long flowered skirts. Apparently neither the director or costume designer was aware that teenagers in the 80s wore jeans, t-shirts,and sweatshirts. As a result, instead of coming across as an authentic 10th grader, "Sarah" seems to be a adult woman with a high pitched squeaky voice. This takes our focus off the disheartening spectacle of her sexual involvement with a man easily old enough to be her grandfather.

Richard Burton (Ashley), who looks very handsome and fit here, and has a grand theatrical speaking voice, appears pained and uncomfortable (I imagine he had kids younger than Tatum O'Neal), and although he tries mightily to make the character human and sympathetic, he doesn't stand a chance with the lame & embarassing lines he has to spout. To his credit, he comes across as grandfatherly with his co-star and not lecherous, but that tiptoes around the basic problem that a 60 yr old man having a romantic attachment with a 15 yr old girl is sick and destructive.

Speaking of that, where are the authorities -- police, prosecutors, child psychologists etc -- in Toronto anyhow? When Sarah's parents find out she is seeing Ashley, they respond in horror...and lock her in her bedroom (a bedroom that has a huge unlocked window leading to a big branched tree that any teenager could skedaddle down in a minute) but they don't make the slightest attempt to file charges against their daughter's geriatric seducer. Also, Sarah's teenage boyfriend (Michael Wincott) attempts to rape her -- but her parents are unconcerned about this and don't apparently file charges against HIM -- and in turn she bashes him in the head with a large rock and fractures his skull and nothing happens as a result of this either. When she starves herself and threatens sucicide on her 16th birthday, instead of putting her into a psychiatric hospital, her parents allow her to see her elderly boyfriend again.

The worst thing about this type of movie is that it invites us to leer -- even showing us Ms. O'Neal in the nude, quite unnecessarily -- and then wants to overlay the whole thing with a smarmy explanation that it's "true love" and that Sarah is a "woman" because she really loves this senior citizen whom she has known all of one month.

Today this kind of film would probably be made for cable and shown on the Lifetime channel, but hopefully public consciousness is more sensitive these days and no one would make a film glorifying what in fact is not just a crime, but a destructive act of control and manipulation and the objectification of the bodies of very young girls.

In conclusion -- gross, but too dull to be porno.

An American French Film
I agree with another reviewer, this is one of my favorite hard to find videos. I titled this review an American French Film, because of the subject matter. Normally we Americans steer away from the older man, much younger girl romance story. Something the French do with ease. Look at Beau Pere, which you can get right here at Amazon.com. Richard Burton gives a fine performance as the older man while Tatum O'Neil gives us a look at what I consider to be one of, if not her finest performance. A love story for the ages, too bad most ages will never see this film. If you can find this film, buy it. It is a keeper.