Movie Review: 'Roxanne'
Pros: Martin's script and performance. Schepsi's directing. Nice supporting cast. Cons: Predictable in spots. Otherwise, none. It's hard to believe that 31 years have passed since Columbia Pictures (now part of Sony's multimedia empire) first released director Fred Schepsi's Roxanne, a gentle and offbeat adaptation of Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac penned by its leading man, Steve Martin. I've never seen either Rostand's play on stage or the straightforward movie adaptation which starred Jose Ferrer back in the 1950s, but this 1987 romantic comedy takes its basic plot of an intelligent, romantic poet-swordsman who falls in love with a beautiful woman and attempts to court her despite having a longer than normal nose and updates it to 1980s America as a vehicle for Martin ( The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid ) and the lovely Darryl Hannah as the titular love interest, Roxanne. In Martin and Schepsi's tale, the guy ...