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About Last Night... (1986)

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56 comments in total

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22 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
one of the best movies on being in love, 15 February 2003
Author: khouston86 from texas

This movie is extremely entertaining and moving. Neither Demi Moore nor Rob Lowe has ever looked better (and you get to see plenty of them). The last scene never fails to get me, and the whole movie rings incredibly true on being in love. Hell, Demi Moore even looks and acts like a girlfriend I had when I was a little bit younger. This is a funny, smart movie that stays with you forever, and I will pay it the ultimate compliment: We are lucky it was made. Vastly underrated on this site, About Last Night is a ten.

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16 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Sex vs. love, a great movie to watch, 16 March 2006

Author: dmaz05 from Atlanta, GA

I know I know you look at the cast and say "Geez, another a brat pack movie from the 80's". However, this movie is really good. The scariest part is how accurate the movie is in portraying the challenge to find true love among young twenty something's in the eighties. All of which still applies today. Did David Mamet know something thirty years ago that we didn't? Even the four main characters and the different personalities they have are easy to relate too and understand because they are all people that we know or once used to know!!!!! Danny (Rob Lowe), a restaurant supply salesman, and Debbie (Demi Moore), an art director at an advertising agency, meet at a baseball game and later link up at a singles bar in Chicago. He's a handsome guy used to one-night stands; she's having an affair with her boss but is looking for something more romantic and less sleazy.

After a one-night stand at Danny's apartment, Debbie tells him, "It's been a slice of heaven." She returns to her place where she lives with Joan (Elizabeth Perkins), a kindergarten teacher whose smart ass tongue discourages most men. Meanwhile at work, Danny's buddy Bernie, a Neanderthal barbaric like fellow (played beautifully by Jim Belushi) who sees himself as a lady killer, queries his friend about his date with Debbie.

The affair continues, and Debbie decides to move in with Danny. Living together proves to be a difficult experience for them. They try out plenty of new positions for sex, but find that coping with each other's habits, quirks, and expectations is far more challenging. Danny's passivity and inability to open up bother Debbie. At one point, he discovers her looking through his private possessions for clues to his past life.

Debbie, of course, wants them to be a couple, while Danny, hiding behind the myth of the independent male, doesn't want to tie himself down and so ends up treating Debbie as nothing more than a live-in sexual object. And if there isn't enough tension between them, Bernie and Joan are constantly trying to sabotage their relationship. Thus the beginning of the end starts when Danny and Debbie use the "L" word after a steamy night of passion. Danny's frustrations with his career spill over into his relationship with Debbie. More frustrations come about with his best friend Bernie giving him a hard time about being with Debbie, losing touch with his own free spirit partier identity and a lack of communication with Debbie. This ultimately leads to a gut wrenching break up scene followed by Danny's painful attempts to get Debbie back after he finally realizes that what he had was special and now wants back what he has lost.

As I was watching this movie I found myself squirming in my seat while these characters struggle to relate to each other. It wasn't very difficult for me to remember that I had gone through the same heartbreaking downfall of a good relationship in my early twenties due to my lack of communication and inexperience regarding matters of the heart like Danny in the movie. And how difficult it can be to move on. My only peace of mind comes at the end when Danny and Debbie decide to start courting again. This time with the realization that they were both unrealistic and naive and that they will be better to each other because of the painful lessons learned. The voices inside Danny, Debbie, Bernie, and Joan speak volumes about the loneliness, anger, self-hate, and fear of men and women who remain perplexed about themselves and the opposite sex. About Last Night is a provocative portrait of young adults. A very underrated movie and a must see.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Nice slice-of-life with attractive stars, 16 October 1999

Author: RNMorton from West Chester, Pa

Film gets ripped by most, but I like it. Rob Lowe & Demi Moore find each other and enter on-again, off-again relationship. Demi has never looked better, and Jim Belushi is outstanding as Lowe's well-meaning but crude best friend. More realistic about relationships than most Hollywood productions.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Accurate Portrayal of a 1980s relationship - with interesting Best Friends!, 5 November 2004
Author: Jeremy Perkins (jwp@aber.ac.uk) from Aberystwyth, Wales

In 1980's Chicago two attractive young people develop a very 1980's relationship. After falling into bed together on their first meeting they progress through a tentative relationship to moving in together, moving out again, and then possibly to some sort of reconciliation.

The film was made contemporaneously with the period it is set in and is one of those films that evoke their particular time with well-observed accuracy. Demi Moore and Rob Lowe deliver strong performances as the articulate, successful – and confused - central characters, with Moore in particular able to reflect on the developing crises with astute asides.

The film possibly has two structural problems. First, it is too long. Boy endlessly prostrating himself in front of Girl he has sent packing gets tedious, and the tension regarding what may happen starts to dissipate.

Secondly, the more-or-less mandatory Best Friend characters are almost too strong. Lowe's buddy James Belushi is a chauvinist slob, but also a bit of a charmer - and with some of the best lines. Moore's confidante Elizabeth Perkins may be something of a shrew, but a damned attractive one. These two take an intense dislike to each other from the start, and as the main romance stalls their relationship becomes by far the more interesting one with its vague possibility that such a sparky loathing just might lead to something more positive - if pretty combustible!

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
How Many Times Have I Been To Mothers, 3 March 2008

Author: dataconflossmoor from United States

I use to live a block away from all of those meat market bars on Rush St and Division in Chicago!! I spent more time in She-Nannigans than I did at my apartment!! The bar, She-Nannigans, was used as a location in the movie "Nothing in Common". What is so funny about this movie is that the meat market scene is centered around four confused characters, and, inevitably, a relationship manifests itself between Rob Lowe and Demi Moore!! I thought Rob Lowe was excellent in this film. Steven Eckholdt was one of the pivotal characters in this film, mostly in the manner by which he was a reflection of the way Rob Lowe use to be!! Steven Eckholdt is very talented and has had a very successful television and movie career!! So many scenes take place inside a bar which was suppose to be Mothers, a bar which is located on the northwest corner of Division St that is open until 5:00 am on Saturdays!! The actual bar which they called Mother Malones, is a bar which used to be called Gingerman!! The heart in the center of the Mothers logo signifies the nefarious gang of mobsters known as Ma Barker and her boys!! This was a symbol the mother, Ma Barker, put on the box of her son's birthday cakes!! This film evokes the entire sordid aura of the Division St scene, including the part about everyone getting together at Five Faces after the evening of getting drunk until sickness comes to a conclusion!! Five Faces is a sandwich place that all of the inebriated dipsomaniacs would congregate at when the drinking and the ill fated attempts at getting lucky were over.. Why is it called Five Faces? The front of the building has five faces painted on it!! They are: Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Elvis Presley, James Cagney and Marilyn Monroe!! With all the drunks in the place, Sh-- Faces is what it should really be called!! The movie "About Last Night" captured the era of the eighties Rush and Division St scene very astutely!! Bars on Rush and Division were at their zenith in the eighties, and it was a meat market scene which captivated the interests of people nationwide!! "About Last Night" was a very well made film! Zwick's directing efforts in this movie are very impressive!! David Mammet is known for plays turned movies which are set in Chicago locations. In addition to "About Last Night", "Glengarry Glen Ross" is another Mammet play which became a successful motion picture!! I liked the movie "About Last Night"!! Division St is a mere shell of what it was in the 1980's, I was so much younger then, and I was totally into the thick of it!! Division St has lost a lot of it's socially acceptable finesse over the years!! Not that people do not drink anymore, that is not it!! Right now, I am writing this review with a really bad hangover!! If you get the chance to see this film please do so!! You will enjoy it very much!!

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
After 20 years, it's still watchable!, 23 August 2007

Author: abdul_m-ismail (abdul_m.ismail@blueyonder.co.uk) from Liverpool, United Kingdom

I was in my mid teens when this film first came out and I watched it for the first time a couple of years later when it was released on VHS. 20 years after its release, I still watch it because this is one of those rare films where the cast selection is superb and the acting is 10/10. Although the soundtrack is very 1980's, some of the music is timeless (for those who are interested, Mica Paris' version of "Words into Action" is just as good as Jermaine Jackson's original).

In my humble opinion, Rob Lowe (Danny) and Demi Moore (Debbie) have by far the best on-screen chemistry that I've seen. Their portrayal during the emotional scenes are amazing and so realistic that they leave a "lump in my throat" every time. James Belushi deserves so much credit as the comic sidekick as does Joan (Elizabeth Perkins), Debbie's cynical friend.

One thing though; I've always wanted to know what happened to their characters twenty years on. So, to Edward Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond etc.): Do you fancy making a sequel; "About Last Decade"? Seriously, About Last Night is by far the vest romantic comedy from the past two decades and for that I give the film 10/10.

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Superb, 10 August 2000
Author: palmer-4 from la

One of my favorite Mamet scripts, About Last Night is true to life and a fine piece of film. I think most adults have known someone like the Jim Belushi character, or the Elizabeth Perkins character. This is one of the films that really captures real situations and makes them interesting, something that Mamet is the king of. I'm not a Rob Lowe fan, but here he was perfectly cast, as was Moore. If you've ever been single for any period of time, this is a movie for you.

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
great movie, 16 October 1998
Author: kelly-22 from lillooet, british columbia, canada

I finally got to sit down and watch this movie after soooo many years. It was a wonderful movie. Rob Lowe was excellent!!! A real tear jerker.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Living Together 101, 20 February 2007

Author: VideoJoeD from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This romantic drama stars Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, who meet and fall in love early in the film and then take the viewers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. This is a love story that provides several ups and downs as it moves through the peaks and valleys of the relationship. Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins provide some humor in interacting with each other and the two stars. They discourage the relationship between their best friends at times and provide emotional support on other occasions. A romantic film that takes a serious look at both the advantages and pitfalls of two people in love moving in together. Belushi provides enough laughs to keep the story from becoming excessively dramatic. In my personal opinion, this movie has been under rated by IMDb voters and could be considered required viewing for young couples contemplating a similar situation.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
About as romantic a movie as possible, but definitely deserves its R rating, 18 February 2007

Author: Amy Adler from Toledo, Ohio

Debbie (Demi Moore) is a successful, young professional in the Chicago area. She and her friends like to hit the neighborhood bar and ogle the men. These women consider themselves "modern", that is, they are not looking for a lasting relationship, just a hot night with Mr. Good Looking. One evening, after a softball game, Debbie meets Dan (Rob Lowe). They are instantly smitten with each other, both being very attractive and very hormonal, and they spend the night together. Debbie tells him thanks for the "slice of heaven" and goes on her way. Yet, a day later, they end up calling one another on the phone, at the same moment. They set up a second date, which ends in another lusty evening. Fairly soon, they move in together but set up guidelines. None of this acting like a married duo, although they take turns cooking and shopping. Yet, is it possible for them to treat each other like roommates only and never let their hearts be touched? And, how long will their relationship last? This is truly a very romantic movie with many assets. Lowe and Moore are absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous human beings and lovely to look upon. The movie also has an intelligent, humorous, truthful and very touching script. Then, too, the costumes, Chicago setting, and cinematography are very worthy, indeed. However, if you like your movies without a lot of sexual encounters, this is not the film for you. This story is an exploration of the nature of modern existence, where sex and birth control are both readily available. As such, it has many eyebrow raising scenes of romantic tete-a-tetes. Therefore, if you prefer good, clean romance movies, try Return to Me or Only You instead. But, if you are willing to look past some fast and loose scenes in exchange for a truly touching and romantic film, get this one tonight.

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