That's Life Reviews

Those advanced birthdays with zeroes at the end of them can be traumatic. In THAT'S LIFE, director Blake Edwards examines the problem as Harvey Fairchild (Jack Lemmon) approaches his 60th birthday. He's a successful and famous architect living in a fabulous Malibu home with his long-time wife, Gillian (Julie Andrews), a beloved singer. The picture begins as Gillian has just had a node removed from her throat, and her doctor doesn't know whether a biopsy will prove it to be cancerous. Gillian will not tell Harvey about the test as he is experiencing a crisis of his own at turning 60. The action in the film takes place over a weekend; as the family arrives for the birthday party, the movie keeps cutting back to the lab technician who is working on the tissue sample. The movie was made with Edwards' own money, about $1.8 million worth, at his own home, and was definitely a family affair, including his wife, Andrews; his daughter, Jennifer Edwards; Emma Walton, Andrews' daughter by her first husband; Felicia Farr, Jack Lemmon's wife; and Chris, Lemmon's son. This nepotism did not harm the movie in any way because all three children are good performers in their own right. The dialog was generally improvised and it's quality depended entirely on the actors. Lots of good satire, but one wishes more of a script had been written, and that the project had been more tightly edited. A Best Song nomination for "Life in a Looking Glass" went to Henry Mancini.