Part of 1973
Set against the political backdrops of the lead-up to World War II and later McCarthyism, a diametrically opposed couple (Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford) come together only to find that genuine friendship and physical attraction is not enough to overcome fundamental societal beliefs.
THE WAY WE WERE was the film that broke the hearts of idealists and bohemians in the 1970s. Politics and love, the double you just can’t mix.
“A traumatized, painful movie about a woman born with an unwavering sense of justice who ultimately frees herself from a harrowing love affair/marriage with a man who should be her natural enemy, a Fitzgerald-like hero, played with icy, dangerous charm by Robert Redford. The movie has the look of a big Hollywood romantic film but because director Pollack looks corruption in the face and exposes it for what it feels like, THE WAY WE WERE emerges as one of the least sentimental love stories ever filmed.” —Alan R. Howard, Hollywood Reporter “It's easy to forgive the movie a lot because of Streisand. She's fantastic. She's the brightest, quickest female actress in movies today, inhabiting her characters with a fierce energy and yet able to be touchingly vulnerable.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Oct 17, 1973)
