You’re A Big Boy Now Blu-ray Review
“You’re A Big Boy Now” is a charming but slight early Coppola film.
Based on the David Benedictus novel, 1966’s “You’re A Big Boy Now” is a lighthearted coming-of-age story about a young naive man (Bernard) who works at a New York library. His parents are smothering, controlling and judgmental and want him to grow up. The 2 allow him to live alone in an apartment, but any sort of freedom he thinks he might have is squashed. His mother doesn’t think he’s ready to start dating and she essentially makes Bernard’s new landlord (Miss Thing) as a sort of spy for her. Of course, Bernard begins to show an interest in women including a redhead beauty (Barbara) and a young woman (Amy) who works for his father. Bernard can’t see that Amy is the one for him as he is smitten with Barbara (who is a real diva), but maybe just maybe he’ll come to realize the facts.
Writer/director Francis Ford Coppola has been in the news lately in regards to his soon to be released opus “Megalopolis” so it feels only fitting to be reviewing one of his earliest works “You’re A Big Boy Now.” The very 60’s movie (which was Coppola’s UCLA Film School Master Thesis) shares a lot in common with “The Graduate” (in fact, it predates it), but unlike that seminal 60’s film, ‘Big Boy’ didn’t quite have the same impact. While the comedic coming-of-age film/sex comedy about living life on your own terms has a strong cast (more on that in a bit), the story itself flounders about. There’s a lot of good ideas here and it’s quite clear that Coppola had an eye for visuals even then (particularly with his cinematic view of New York), but it feels less like a Coppola film and more like Coppola trying to make a comedy of the era. It’s got sex appeal, hip tunes by The Lovin’ Spoonful, comedic shenanigans (including a climactic chase scene), a touch of surrealism and psychedelia, a dorky lead character who goes through a transformation, and a scene stealing Dog. You get the feeling Coppola wanted to say more with this comedy, but the ideas get lost in the shuffle.
On the plus side, the cast is stacked with talent. The underrated Elizabeth Hartman is superb as the alluring Barbara. Geraldine Page rightfully earned an Oscar nom for her performance as Bernard’s overbearing mother. Karen Black makes an impression in her debut performance as Amy. Peter Kastner (Bernard), Julie Harris (Miss Thing) and Rip Torn (Bernard’s father) also fare well in their respective roles. It’s a fun cast of characters, but they just don’t have a lot of story to work with here.
Video/Audio:
Presentation: 1.66:1 1080p. How does it look? Once again Warner Archive dazzles with this hi-def transfer that offers up rich colors.
Audio Track: 2.0 DTS-HD MA. How does it sound? Viewers can expect a nice clean track.
The lone extra is the original theatrical trailer.
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