User Reviews

But it's a progressive Texas town because among its population is "a" homosexual and a man who wears his wife's nightgown. That's the intro that the divorced Sally Field gets from town pharmacist James Garner, having a hard time getting settled in town and refused a loan at the bank. "I'd go out on the streets, but you only have one", she tells the very officious bank loan manager. Her romance with Garner starts off just through friendly encounters, a few a bit spikey, but hey, romance, even in May-December one needs to start somewhere.

Director Martin Ritt and star Sally Field sought out Garner for this role, and indeed, it is up there with his best, his Oscar nomination not in vain because he really deserved it. His character has a way of dealing with life and discussing it with such humor that you can see why he is known as "a bleeding heart liberal" in his very conservative community. Garner also hits it off with Field's son, Corey Haim, and that's a very important detail in a romance that really takes its time to develop.

I would consider this film to be excellent, but it's not a film that requires its audience to search for excellence. It just is. A screenplay of real people with real problems living a real life, and even when characters are grouchy (particularly Charles Lane, the town's feisty oldest citizen), you can't help but love them. American movies don't always get it right when dealing with real people, but when they do, the results are amazing. I may not want to move to where this takes place, but it certainly was worth a 90-minute visit there.

Older man/younger woman romances were a long Hollywood staple; I tend to associate them with the forties and fifties, but "Murphy's Romance" shows that they were still popular in the eighties. I have never read the novella on which the film is based, but I understand that in it the two main characters Emma Moriarty and Murphy Jones just remain platonic friends. Someone at the studio, however, obviously felt that nobody wants to see films about older man/younger woman platonic friendships. They even exaggerated the age difference; in 1985 Sally Field would have been 39 and James Garner 57, but we the film tells us that Emma is 33 and Murphy 60, thus stretching the difference from 18 years to 27.

Emma is a divorced mother with a young son who moves to a small Arizona town to make a living as a horse-trainer. She finds it difficult to fit in as the local people are not particularly welcoming to strangers, but she does make a friend in Murphy, the town's widowed pharmacist. This being a romantic comedy, there has to be an obstacle to the love of the two main characters, and one arrives in the shape of Emma's ex-husband Bobby Jack, who arrives in town and moves in with her. As the film is entitled "Murphy's Romance", not "Bobby Jack's Romance", we can tell that this is not going to be a comedy of remarriage, but it's a fairly close-run thing. Bobby Jack may be childish and irresponsible, making it easy to understand why his marriage failed first time around, but he is also young and good-looking and his and Emma's son Jake adores him. Just ten minutes before the end it looks as though Emma and Bobby Jack are about to re-consummate their relationship with a (quite literal) roll in the hay, but their plans are frustrated when Emma's hay fever brings on a fit of sneezing. (This made me wonder why anyone suffering from this particular condition would want to take up horse training as a profession).

My main reason for watching the film was that it was directed by Martin Ritt who also made one of my all-time favourites, "Hud", as well as films as good as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "Hombre" and "The Molly Maguires". "Murphy's Romance", however, is not really in the same league as any of those. It is an amiable enough little movie, and Garner and Field make an appealing hero and heroine, but there is little about it that remains in the mind afterward. Ritt was normally a serious-minded director and specialised in serious-minded dramas; rom-coms do not seem to have been his forte. 6/10.

After 30 years of only hearing about this one, I finally watched Murphy's Romance on Netflix disc with my mom just now. It's a nice drama with some humorous touches throughout. Sally Field plays a divorced mother with a young boy (Corey Haim) who's befriended by James Garner as a druggist who occasionally spends time with them. Ms. Field also has an ex-husband who comes by and tries to rekindle his romance with her. I'll stop there and just say both me and Mom enjoyed the light touches of many scenes. It took a while for something to be going on but it was never boring. Oh, and if you're a big fan of It's a Wonderful Life like I am, you'll probably get a kick of one of its players-Charles Lane-appearing here as an old man who takes a ride in James Garner's car and thinks he's going too fast even though he's only driving at 30 miles! He's also in a later dance sequence with a woman near his age. So on that note, I highly recommend Murphy's Romance.

This is a romance/comedy that I'll never get tired of watching. (might contain spoilers) Sally Fields is newly divorced and moves to a small southwestern town to start boarding horses. She makes good friends with older gent James Garner and things begin from there.

This is a nice movie to curl up and watch with a cup of hot chocolate (or iced tea). It moves along at a steady pace so you aren't bored and the ending will leave a smile on your face. I gave this movie 10 stars because I'm entertained every time I watch it. On a side note, I usually hate romantic movies, but this one is just different. Especially with the age gap that, in the end, just doesn't matter anymore.

"Murphy's Romance" starring Sally Fields and James Garner is an unremarkable mid-80s drama. Seeing it at the library, I honestly could not recall hearing of it around its release time, but caught it recently, and wasn't hugely disappointed or enamored either. Of it's strengths, Garner turns in an excellent sagely and patient performance, while Fields comes off as neurotic. Along for the ride is the late Corey Haim, popular in the 80s, has a smaller role though quite a bit of screen-time. Directed by Martin Ritt, the movie is watchable in the sense of an OK TV drama. Scenes with Garner and Fields are touching, but there's too much of an age gap to detect any actual chemistry. 5/10 - basic melodrama.