Thanks everyone for this long and interesting thread.
I saw this film on TV in the early eighties, and it has haunted me ever since. Although it was quite soppy, and I wouldn't generally say that was my type of film, something about it was deeply affecting and beautiful. For all this time, I couldn't remember the name of the film, and have hoped it would come up again on TV.
Today I put a description of the story into Google, and it brought me straight here. Amazing to find that so many people were similarly captivated by it - so convincing at some level - despite being a light romance - that you all talk about how it ends as if they are real characters.
I remembered the ending as satisfying - a sense of completion. And reading here, I too have a vague memory of the ending where one of them dies. It is rather sad if this ending has been cut. Because of course one of them will eventually die, as in any relationship, and it is good to know that a great love can encompass this - that this can be faced. As the Queen said about nine eleven: grief is the price we pay for love.
I think that an ending where both spouses eventually die, and they finally get together would be weaker - though perhaps superficially more warming. They each had spouses they loved, who actually were the core of their lives; they decided to remain with them after all. Had they eventually lived together, their great love might not have worn so well. Their love had its purpose and place in their lives. This is so much more subtle than the standard moralising USA drama, where every love has to end in either loss or marriage.
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melgabored
11 years ago
Oh how I wish time travel were possible. I attended a Q&A panel with Ellen Burstyn after a showing of this film at the Brooklyn Academy of Music a few weeks ago. It would have been interesting to speak to her about an alternate ending!
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