Barely average, if even that, though the framing and architecture is sometimes nice. No one involved really swings for the fences. Dullea and Margolin look like they're having a little too much fun playing the mentally ill.

Once widely praised, now a minor classic at best, this little film deals with the relationship of David, who can't be touched, and Lisa, who only speaks in rhyme. The treatment of mental illness is damnably pat, the acting variable, the script thin and the directing crude (with a gross overuse of blackouts); still, Keir Dullea and especially Janet Margolin shine through the material when they can, and at choice moments, one still feels the basic power of the story. Lovely score by Mark Lawrence.

A plenty risky thing 2 ask viewers 2 identify w/ 2 mentally ill protagonists, much less ones whose stubbornly fixed (& a bit cartoonish) symptoms allow little, if any, entry-points 4 emotional connection. So although I found the staccato pacing sluggish & Lisa's puppy-like ways frustrating, I've got to give it credit 4 daring: it never begs - heck it doesn't even ask -4 its audience's affection. The best thing about it is David, whose supercilious bark cuts through the film's bleakly sober tone

Well-intentioned, and the girl is ridiculously pretty, but as a serious look at mental illness it is pretty dated.