I saw this movie maybe back in the 1980s. I was thinking the male lead was Robert de Niro but couldn’t find anything like this in his filmography. Set at first in the 1950s or 60s, a couple meet, fall in love get married. The man becomes more focused on his business (or maybe he was a mobster, I’m a little fuzzy on that) and the couple grows apart. It traces their marriage over many years and does an impressive job of aging the characters throughout. I think they may get divorced towards the end. I can’t remember if they had children.
Thanks, that might have been it. I just watched the trailer. Funny that the main thing I remembered was the relationship, not all the crime stuff. Also funny that if you asked me whether I had ever seen “Goodfellas” I would say no, but maybe I did.
This definitely isn’t your movie, but it has points of similarity – Same Time Next Year, based on the play by Bernard Slade. It traces a highly improbable couple who have an affair only once a year, and traces them through time. The movie version (1978) starred Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn (the play had originally starred Charles Grodin and Burstyn)
That movie begins with a divorce as I recall. I saw that movie in the theater when it first came out. It was my very first date. What an awkward afternoon. In retrospect she was very kind to me.
So, was it Goodfellas? I would be stunned if it was. It’s like one of those bad TV Guide descriptions. “A shoe shiner’s best friend marries the woman he loves. But the couple grows apart over the years.”
A very under appreciated movie with DiNero and Streep is Falling in Love. I don’t think this is the movie you are looking for, but it’s definitely worth a viewing.
There’s a very famous montage in Citizen Kane that tells that whole story (happy couple gets married, he becomes more and more interested in his business, they age and grow apart, and get divorced) in just a couple of minutes. When I say “very famous” I mean, it’s literally one of the most famous montages in American cinematic history and you do yourself a disservice if you don’t watch it.
I’m pretty sure it was Goodfellas. I was surprised to look it up and find it was 1990; I had thought it was a few years earlier. But that’s still 27 years ago. And I’ll be damned if I can explain why I remembered which parts. I could guess but I think it would take a shrink. One thing I remember vividly is thinking that the makeup people did an amazing job of aging deNiro.
I could write a lot of those bad TV Guide descriptions based on my memory
I think I’ll get it on DVD and watch it again (I have Netflix DVD plus streaming, but like every other movie I want to watch it’s not available on streaming).
