PERFECT. Directed and produced by James Bridges for Columbia; written by Aaron Lathem and James Bridges. Starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. Rated R (language, a little nudity).
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"'Tis the mind that makes the body rich." Or so says Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew. And there are riches for both mind and body (at least for the eyes) in Perfect. In the shape (so to speak) of an interesting story and characters as well as plenty of supple young bodies working out to a fare-thee-well. It's a good movie that comes close to being a very good one.
Adam (Travolta) is a Rolling Stone magazine reporter with a reputation for tough interviews. While in Los Angeles trying to interview a businessman being tried for drug dealing, he gets an idea for a different kind of story. "Coed health clubs as the singles bars of the '80s," is how he sells the idea to his editor (played by the magazine's real editor, Jann Wenner.)
The rest of the movie concerns Adam's research on these two stories. He falls in love with an aerobics instructor named Jessie (Curtis) at the Sports Connection. And he gets an explosive interview with the businessman. Along the way both Adam and the audience must ponder the ethics of modern journalism and its imperfect practice as well as the urge for physical perfection among the health club set.
The movie's biggest problem is that it takes too long to get to the meat of these interesting stories. Its biggest strength is its realistic situations and characters, which are brought to life by some excellent acting and writing.
Travolta is good as Adam. He is basically a nice guy whose job has trained him to act like an SOB. Appropriately slimy when trying to trick information out of an interviewee, he's also sweetly vulnerable when he realizes his feelings for Jessie.
Curtis is attractive and handles her athletic part well. Her acting isn't in the same class as Travolta's. But that usually doesn't matter too much, since she really just needs to look good with him.
Some of the supporting characters in Perfect deserve special mention. Laraine Newman and Marilu Henner, in particular, are excellent as two friends who hang out at the Sports Connection. Their relationship rates a movie of its own. They are women on the make, to be sure, but their characters gain complexity and interest as the movie progresses. And their performances are so good that they come close to stealing the show from Travolta and Curtis.
More judicious editing of the workout sequences would have helped the pace of Perfect tremendously. These scenes should have been short enough to leave us wanting more, not so long as to make us impatient to get back to business. Travolta's one workout is quite funny. He looks so out of place with his Yankee white legs in the roomful of tanned California bodies. But its point could have been made in far less time.
Perfect runs about two hours and it should only last 1 1/2. If the right half hour had been trimmed from it, it would be an excellent movie. Even so, you don't often get two such interesting stories for the price of one. And its slate of good performances make it worth seeing in spite of its faults.
June 12, 1985