This film has been criticized for thirty years now for apparently showing that sexually liberated young women deserve to end up dead. She has chosen this life of thrill seeking and playing by her own rules, in contrast to the way her family would like her to have turned out, but her decision near the end of the movie to quit drugs and stop hanging out at bars is a strong indication of a new resolution to find a more meaningful life.
Her insistence that she is " alone, not lonely", is not convincing, ultimately. There's a really moving quality about Keaton's portrayal of a seemingly fragile, yet tough young woman who has had to cope with physical disability, rejection by those she loves, and being casually abandoned by a man she thought really loved her. Both stand in contrast to the third sister, Brigid, who has assumed the role of the traditional Catholic housewife and mother. The essential contradictions of her character are never really resolved, but are certainly echoed by her sister Katherine's succession of failed marriages and affairs. Diane Keaton is convincing as a serious young woman with high ideals, who finds herself leading a double life as a bar hopping party girl by night. This too is emphasized much more strongly than in the novel. Theresa's difficulties at mutual understanding with her angry father are clearly at the root of all her later struggles with male/female relationships. The relationship is built up more too, probably for contrast with the conventional marriage and family offered to her by James. He is much more sleazy and vaguely sinister than in the novel.
Tony is also portrayed in a more negative light by Richard Gere. The film's James, played by William Atherton, is ultimately a creepy kind of guy, who turns out to be pretty unstable, and not the nice, if dull, man he is in the book.
The most striking difference from the novel is in the portrayal of James, the conservative, traditional man who would like to marry her. I also recently read the novel by Judith Rossner that the screenplay was based on, and one thing stands out definitely:In the movie adaptation,all of the men Theresa gets involved with are negative, destructive characters in one way or another. But having finally seen the uncut film after thirty years, I'm going to make a few comments about it. So much has been written about this film, it's hard to imagine what anyone could add to the discussion.
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