Random Hulu Movie: Just Between Friends
I used to love the Random Sunday Afternoon movies that would come on TV and I would have never heard of. Now that I’m too cheap to pay for cable, I’m left to get my random movies from the internet. Hulu to the rescue!
Just Between Friends is a cheesy melodrama from 1986. Holly (Mary Tyler Moore, who is disgustingly, distractingly THIN here. Please eat a sandwich, Mary. PLEASE!) is married to Chip (Ted Danson, ALSO thin) and meets Sandy (Christine Lahti, REALLY THIN, too!) at an Awesomely 80s Aerobics class. Despite the fact that Holly is a straight laced housewife and Sandy is a chain smoking field reporter, the two women become fast friends (see title) and Holly invites Sandy to dinner at her house (people always do this in movies…become fast friends and have impromptu dinner parties). So Sandy comes over, the ladies chat and then Chip gets home from the office (he’s a seismologist for some reason). ZOMG, SANDY HAS BEEN HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH CHIP! Needless to say, this makes for a pretty fucking awkward dinner party with a lot of hemming and hawing that was patently ridiculous. I mean, seriously, couldn’t the affair participants at least pretend to make chit chat? These people are bad at having an affair.
So then Chip goes off to a conference in Washington…it’s some like nuclear affairs protest or something…are seismologists involved in that kind of thing? Seemed weird to me. But anyway, after the conference, ZOMG CHIP DIES IN A CAR CRASH!
More hemming and hawing. Sandy and Holly grow closer. Holly buys the gym where she took aerobics classes (WTF is up with the weird suspender leotards that chicks wore in the 80s? Seems horribly uncomfortable. But the aerobics montages are actually really awesome.) Then, of course, Holly is cleaning out Chip’s office at the seismology place in Pasadena and ZOMG SHE FINDS PICTURES OF SANDY AND CHIP TOGETHER!
They stop being friends and there is a lot of bitchy and passive aggressive behavior. Loooove to see that. There are attempts from both sides at trying to be friends again, then ZOMG IT TURNS OUT SANDY IS PREGNANT WITH CHIP’S BABY!
ZOMG SHE DECIDES TO HAVE THE BABY!
ZOMG HOLLY STARTS DATING CHIP’S COLLEAGUE HARRY (Sam Waterston, who is actually really cute in this movie and the only one who is not painfully thin)!
ZOMG SANDY HAS THE BABY AND EVERYONE IS FRIENDS AGAIN!
I love Mary Tyler Moore, but when she’s just being a normal actress and not an adorable ball of comedic neuroses, I don’t really have any interest in watching it. The sad part is, this movie isn’t quite bad enough to be hilariously bad. It’s just kind of annoying and…pointless. Predictable, boring, poorly directed, but a shining example of what was wrong with 80s fashions, in case you needed another one of those.
You can watch it here: Just Between Friends on Hulu