The Heartbreak Kid

Neil Simon must be rolling his eyes somewhere if he’s seen the remake of his 1972 movie The Heartbreak Kid. He wrote the clever script and Elaine May directed the original movie. Charles Grodin played the young Jewish guy who married the wrong nice Jewish girl and fell in love with a blonde shiksa (played by Cybill Shepherd) on his Miami honeymoon. Neil’s delicious script went from comedy to satire to serious drama and back. In the new version, the Farrelly brothers ditched the script and removed all ethnic references – effectively lowering the IQ of the movie. What remains is plenty of gross-out physical humor and vulgar dialogue. If you see the new Heartbreak Kid, do yourself a favor and rent the original. The real heartbreak is what the Farrelly brothers did to Neil Simon’s script.