Film editor Robert Cole is breaking up with his girlfriend, Mary--again. Even Mary doesn't really believe he's serious. Sure enough, after 24 hours of trying to start his life over by launching a new exercise program and setting up a date with a woman he once met but can't seem to remember, he becomes desperate to be back with his former love. Mary takes him back, and the codependent couple finds themselves right back in their old dysfunctional patterns of jealousy and insecurity--but at least the sex is great. Albert Brooks again shows his ability to analyze and deconstruct the most everyday elements of life with humor and empathy in this wry, comic view of relationships. George Kennedy has a hilarious cameo as himself in the film-within-the-film that Brooks's character is editing, and director James L. Brooks appears as the neurotic director of the same film.

MODERN ROMANCE is Albert Brooks's sendup of relationships in the 1980s. Brooks is a sound man for movies, struggling to maintain a modern attitude about love despite his old-fashioned values. The quaalude scene is a comedy classic.

Actor Bob Einstein, best known as Super Dave Osborne, is Albert Brooks's real-life brother. Albert Brooks's birth name was Albert Einstein.

Excerpt: "Look, this has nothing to do with 'ludes. It's just a person saying to another person, 'I love you.'"--Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) making a quaalude-influenced declaration of friendship for his assistant, Jay (Bruno Kirby)

"Look how many friends I've got!...Mr. Popularity, Mr. Popularity!"--Robert to his disinterested parakeet, Petey

"I just broke up with somebody. I'm just going to buy a few gifts."--Robert to a parking-lot attendant

DVD Features:

Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
Closed Captioned - English
Subtitles - English - Optional

Albert Brooks: Actor/writer/director
Kathryn Harrold: American Actress
George Kennedy: American actor, COOL HAND LUKE
Bruno Kirby: American Film and Television Actor

Albert Brooks: Actor/writer/director

Andrew Scheinman: Producer/Screenwriter
Martin Shafer: Producer, MODERN ROMANCE

"...Brooks gets good performances....Bob Einstein is particularly amusing..."
"...It takes time for the full measure of this movie's meandering, heartfelt nuttiness to make itself known..."
"[S]omething fresh, real and, at least to date, completely inimitable."
"Among the best Brooks outings, this is a movie of twisted prime moments."