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Pakula's debut as a director, two years before making Klute, is one of those rare American films which manage to be gently observational without succumbing to the Europeanism of Mazursky or Cassavetes. Liza Minnelli, improbably, is the kook of the title, a college girl who tumbles through an autumn romance with a bashful student (Burton). Not a lot happens: the camera watches, winter comes, the kids split up, Pookie drops out...but the sympathy of the direction for once makes ...romantic realism likeable.

"The Sterile Cuckoo," adapted from John Nichols's novel by Alvin Sargent, is the first directorial effort of Alan J. Pakula, who heretofore has acted as the producer of films directed by Robert Mulligan ("Inside Daisy Clover," "Up the Down Staircase," "The Stalking Moon"). As do Mulligan's movies, "The Sterile Cuckoo" aspires to an unconventional (by Hollywood standards) narrative honesty that is constantly undercut by conventional cinematic slickness.

Pakula has succeeded in obtaining a strong, interesting performance from Miss Minnelli (whose only previous film work was in "Charlie Bubbles"), but the fakely lyric and comic details of the movie do not illuminate the dark story it tells. There are moments of honesty, as in the couple's first visit to a motel, when the boy, in his embarrassment, carefully hangs up Pookie's clothes before getting undressed himself. Pakula also stages a very funny and bleak fraternity party that turns into the sort of beery roughhouse, which to freshmen might pass for an orgy.

Gary Tooze

October 10th, 2012