Butterflies are Free

Butterflies are Free
USA
1972
***

This movie is very much of its time, not just with the groovy clothes and all the talk about hippies. The cinematography and acting style all seem very dated. It's basically the stage play in front of a camera--nearly all the action takes place in Don's apartment, and the delivery of the lines is very stage-y. The clever quips are charming but also are very typical of a Broadway play.

However, I still really enjoyed the movie. While it seemed stiff in many ways, the characters are amazingly complex. Don, the young blind man, doesn't just want to be independent of his mother, he wants to be treated like a regular person by everyone. Jill is a free spirit, but her flightiness is a mask for real emotional scars. And even Don's mother who comes off as a stereotype at first grows and changes over the course of the film.

Edward Albert is handsome in a Ken-doll kind of way, and while he's a good actor, he speaks in a very affected way that was occasionally annoying. He's hit or miss at playing blind; he's more convincing in some shots than others. But Goldie Hawn really shines. This film was impossible to find for a long time. I'm really glad it's out on DVD finally.