Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?

Recently restored to 4K, this underseen odd-couple romance is a sweet slice of 1980s New York life featuring cameos from Larry David and Orson Welles.

After her husband unceremoniously leaves her one morning, Zee heads out to wander the streets of the Upper West Side in a daze, muttering to herself about what she could have done differently. Stopping at Café Central to eat her feelings with a big bowl of chocolate ice cream, Zee’s loud sobs are noticed by Eli, a fellow divorcee, sitting at the next table. Before long, the two strangers develop a distinctly neurotic New York–style case of amour fou, philosophising, bickering and engaging in a courtship characterised by acts of mutual wallowing.

This dryly funny romance from iconoclastic American independent filmmaker Henry Jaglom (who died just last September) is an invaluable time capsule of 1980s New York. Filmed on the streets among real pedestrians, its freewheeling style lends the film a refreshing spontaneity, enhanced by the wonderfully quirky central performances by Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces) and the director’s brother Michael Emil (Insignificance, MIFF 1985), as well as memorable cameos from Carol Kane, a young Larry David and Orson Welles – Jaglom’s friend and business partner – as a movie magician.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival