It's My Turn

By Bret Fetzer

Two events force Kate (Jill Clayburgh) to confront the dissatisfactions of her life: her father's impending wedding and a job offer that would take her from Chicago to New York. Her relationship with Homer (Charles Grodin) is pleasant but shallow. When she meets Ben (Michael Douglas) at the wedding's rehearsal dinner--he's her future stepbrother--there's an immediate spark. They flirt on the way home, finding themselves in an arcade where they both prove to be intensely competitive. Their first encounter gets a little prickly, but soon they find their relationship taking a deeper and more complicated turn. It's My Turn would never be made now; too many scenes of people talking, too many unresolved questions. But the movie's attention to the details of human interaction, particularly the negotiations around a sexual encounter, make it richly rewarding. Douglas gives a strong performance and Clayburgh is superb; it's delightful to rediscover how smart and sexy she could be. There's a general impression that dozens of women-centered movies were made in the late 1970s, but in fact movies that explore life from a woman's point of view are rare. More impressive, though, It's My Turn was written and directed by women, and the male characters are as fully developed and multidimensional as the women. It's a small movie--it covers a weekend in Kate's life and no tumultuous decisions are made--but within that short span, a lot of life takes place.

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