#108: Sea of Love
Release Date: September 15th, 1989
Format: Streaming (Netflix)
Written by: Richard Price
Directed by: Harold Becker
3.5 Stars
Sea of Love has been on my radar for 20 years, and I finally watched it.
The main reason why it’s been gnawing at me for so long is because my friends and I at the video store used to talk about Al Pacino and this enormous gap in his filmography in the 1980s. To us, he was one of the biggest and most respected film actors of the 1970s, and then poof, he disappeared. When he reemerges in the early ‘90s he looks about 20 years older, with a noticeably raspier voice and sunken eyes, and he seems to be a completely different performer.
The subtlety and nuance in his depictions of Michael Corrleone in The Godfather or Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon are completely gone, replaced by the louder and bigger Pacino scene-stealing turns in Dick Tracy, Scent of a Woman, and Heat. BUT, there is a blip on the radar between these two Pacino eras: 1989’s Sea of Love.
I was always curious, just which Pacino do we get in this film? The understated, charismatic Pacino of the 1970s or the more performative, broader Pacino of the 1990s? The answer is, well, kinda both.
I really liked his performance in Sea of Love. He plays Frank Keller, a New York cop who falls in love with a woman named Helen Kruger (Ellen Barkin) whom he’s investigating for murder. It’s a demanding role for Pacino, and places him solidly in a gritty urban milieu that harkens back to his onscreen persona of the 1970s.
And it’s a perfect intersection of an actor at a certain age and point of his career with a role. I think 1989 is the singular year where Al Pacino could best play a middle-aged, worn down cop trying to make right and find love. That alone makes the film worth watching.
Outside of the Pacino career-lens, Sea of Love has a lot going for it. I really enjoy neo-noir movies of the 1980s. You can see the joy these boomers had in remaking the gritty crime films of their youth and updating them with slick 1980s technology and smooth jazz scores. Now over 30 years later, they’re really interesting to look at and listen to.
Sea of Love also gets a big, fun performance from John Goodman. He’s a wonderful ying to Pacino’s yang, and although this isn’t a buddy cop movie per say, his energy and charisma contrasts nicely with Pacino’s.
Also, Ellen Barkin is incredible in the film. It’s a challenging role, and she kept me continuously guessing whether she was a psychopathic femme fatale or just a hard-working single mother swept up in unfortunate circumstances. Plus, she’s a total 1980s smokeshow. Sure, it’s a bit unbelievable that she’s this forlorn woman in her early 30s working in a busy Manhattan shoe store (the real version of this character would have to beat male suitors away with a stick), but who cares? Her depiction of a woman who wants visceral romance and won’t settle for anything less is very well-performed. I think she is wonderful.
I won’t spoil the ending of the film, although I will say that I could see a bit of the nuts and bolts of the script. The audience is headed down a path with these characters, and at the last moment, the path goes left. I’m not sure if it totally works, and tonally, I’m not sure how I feel about how things end for Frank and Helen. I think I might like it more on a second viewing.
So Sea of Love ends up being a great, but not perfect neo-noir thriller. But as an exercise in casting performers at just the right point in their careers, Pacino especially, Sea of Love is a success. Throw in some sexy jazz saxophone and it ends up being a damn good time, too.
