Stephen Schiff

“The screen relationship that Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell have created isn't hot-blooded; it isn't even very romantic. It's comfortable, and one recognizes the way it works at once: Karen's burgeoning strength will make Drew question his own bullishness, and the relationship will suffer. I've gotten good and tired of this post-feminist formula…, and I wish Kurt Russell had been given a chance to buck it…. When he and Karen are on the skids, it's Russell who draws the darker and sexier emotions to the surface; Streep is stiff, chilly--Streepish.

“And yet, this is the finest performance she's given since she was designated a national shrine--the best, in fact, since the sublime comic turn she delivered in The Seduction of Joe Tynan. Wearing a scraggly auburn hairdo and an assortment of unfortunate mini-skirts, cowboy boots, and peasant blouses, Streep seems to enjoy playing a flirty lowlife; she understands Karen's sexual humor, and she shows us how it might feel to be a woman who regards flashing a naked breast as the most scintillating of witticisms. Even when Streep's being moon-driven and actressy, Nichols knows how to direct her. Instead of propping her up in the center of the frame and letting the camera adore her suffering, Nichols sets her to the side, where she can bounce off the other actors; one sees her listening and soaking things up, one sees how fast she is, and how funny. Streep's scenes with Cher are little jewels of comic-romantic direction; they're love scenes (even though Karen remains a true-blue heterosexual--at least according to this film). And Cher… is splendid….”

[left out some, including Streep's "wise-elephant eyes"]

Stephen Schiff
Vanity Fair, February 1984