The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Up Close & Personal
Drama · Romance · 1996
Tally Atwater has a dream: to be a prime-time network newscaster. She pursues this dream with nothing but ambition, raw talent and a homemade demo tape. Warren Justice is a brilliant, hard edged, veteran newsman. He sees Tally has talent and becomes her mentor. Tally’s career takes a meteoric rise and she and Warren fall in love. The romance that results is as intense and revealing as television news itself. Yet, each breaking story, every videotaped crisis that brings them together, also threatens to drive them apart...
Movie details
Up Close & Personal
“Passion Brought Them Together... Only Success Could Tear Them Apart!”
1996 Drama · Romance 1h 59m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
Tally Atwater has a dream: to be a prime-time network newscaster. She pursues this dream with nothing but ambition, raw talent and a homemade demo tape. Warren Justice is a brilliant, hard edged, veteran newsman. He sees Tally has talent and becomes her mentor. Tally’s career takes a meteoric rise and she and Warren fall in love. The romance that results is as intense and revealing as television news itself. Yet, each breaking story, every videotaped crisis that brings them together, also threatens to drive them apart...
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Up Close & Personal?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Jon Avnet
Written by
Joan Didion · John Gregory Dunne
Robert Redford
Warren Justice
Michelle Pfeiffer
Tally Atwater
Stockard Channing
Marcia McGrath
Joe Mantegna
Bucky Terranova
Kate Nelligan
Joanna Kennelly
Glenn Plummer
Ned Jackson
James Rebhorn
John Merino
Court is in session
Put Up Close & Personal on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.