The Only Thrill Reviews

Pointless, slow-moving would-be weepie that never picks up steam. It's 1966 in Texas, and Reece McHenry (Sam Shepard) is a self-employed shopkeeper who has a 13 year old son and whose wife is in a coma resulting from a devastating car accident. He meets Carol Fritzsimmons (Diane Keaton), whose philandering husband died in a car accident, stranding her and her young daughter. Reece and Carol are instantly attracted to each other and start dating. Reece then dumps his sometime back-alley fling Joleen (Sharon Lawrence), and he and Carol commence what will become a long-standing romantic ritual of going to Wednesday matinees. They date for 12 years until Carol abruptly announces that she must move to Canada to take care of her ailing sister. At precisely this time, we meet each one's two grown children, Tom (Robert Patrick) and Katherine (Diane Lane). They in turn meet for the first time and have a whirlwind romance that ends when Katherine suddenly decides to leave town to pursue an acting career. Shepard and Keaton have played onscreen lovers before (BABY BOOM), and they generate no new romantic sparks, although they look comfortable together. Most scenes provoke excruciating boredom and bewilderment, with hollow acting, arbitrary and choppy editing and dull writing. How can so much acting talent be put to so little use? Without giving too much away, the indecisive romance between Reece and Carol is never satisfactorily resolved, although it inspires the younger generation to seize the day.