The Keanu Reeves Project: I Love You To Death

I LOVE YOU TO DEATH (1990) - Marlon

I Love You To Death is a hard one to discuss in the context of rewatching it for the first time in decades in the year 2020.  I definitely saw this in bits and pieces as a kid but possibly never from start to finish and while I remembered some of it going into my most recent watch last night, a lot of it still felt very new to me.

What I definitely did not remember is Kevin Kline's over-the-top performance as an Italian immigrant living in the Pacific Northwest.  Kline plays Joey, a philandering restaurant and apartment owner who spends his days making pizza and his evenings on the town cheating on his wife Rosalie, played by Tracey Ullman.

Kline's performance is....certainly something.  He's essentially every bad Italian stereotype rolled into one person, speaking in an accent that would make the Mario brothers blush.

It's-a Me!  An incredibly troubling Italian stereotype!

Rosalie, who is either the stupidest woman alive or willfully ignorant chooses to ignore Joey's obvious lifestyle outside of work and constantly makes excuses on his behalf despite his obvious sexual liasons with nearly every other woman in town, including a very young Heather Graham in one of her first movie roles.

It's-a me!  Heather Graham!

The movie also features River Phoenix as Devo, who went on to become very close friends with Keanu Reeves during this filming, as one of Joey's employees as well as admirer of Rosalie. 

Rosalie eventually discovers that Joey has been cheating on her constantly, and under the advice of her Eastern European immigrant mother (another caricature of a performance) determines the only move she has is to kill him.  

It's-a me!  Phoebe Cates!

First, Rosalie attempts to poison Joey by making him a giant pot of spaghetti, because, you know, Italy, but all this really accomplishes is making Joey sick to the point of delirium but does not finish the job.

On the advice of Devo, Rosalie and her mother are introduced to easily the funniest characters in the movie, Harlan and Marlon played by William Hurt and Keanu Reeves respectively.  Harlan and Marlon are a pair of drug addicts willing to commit murder for a few hundred dollars and easily steal every successive scene they're in to the point that I wish there had been a spin-off movie about their adventures living in Tacoma, Washington.

It's-a me!  Keanu Reeves!

For the record, this now makes Keanu's third very bad haircut in a very short career to this point, although at least this time it very truly fits his character.  Harlan and Marlon spend the second act of the movie bumbling about as they try to figure out how to kill Joey, eventually shooting him in the chest after determining that bashing him to death with a baseball bat isn't the best idea.

Keanu Reeves particularly stands out here, especially in the scene where he tries to remember where the human heart is and so the resort to reciting the pledge of allegiance, and of course forgetting most of the words.

Despite the poisoning and the gunshot, Joey survives and by the end of the movie, Rosalie has forgiven him and they decide to stay married even though there's no way Joey will ever change his ways.

BEST PART: Everything with Harlon and Marlon.  They are very, very funny in this.

WORST PART: Not crediting Phoebe Cates for her small role in this.  I mean come on!  It's legend of 80's film Phoebe Cates!

Box Office Mojo information: $16 Million ($33 Million  inflation adjusted)

Rotten Tomatoes: 56% Critics, 63% Audience

IMDB: 6.4

My Movie Rating: 6/10.  It's a totally fine dark comedy but just about all of the best parts of this come from Keanu Reeves and William Hurt.  I wish they were in more of it.

Keanu Rating: 10/10.  Yes, I'm obviously a huge Keanu Reeves fan and so I'm biased in all of my reviews.  But in his limited screen time, Keanu seriously shows off his comedic chops and has some of the funniest lines in the entire movie and the only ones that made me laugh out loud, "If we keep shooting Joey, don't you think he might get suspicious?"  His performance reminded me a bit of Brad Pitt's brilliant effort as Floyd in True Romance.  

Up next:  The 1990 movie Tune in Tomorrow....I literally have never heard of this and it looks like the only place to find it is on Youtube where it's broken into six parts.  Perfect.