Between the Lines
Director: Joan Micklin Silver
Writer: Fred Barron, David Helpern
Cast: John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum, Jill Eikenberry, Bruno Kirby, Gwen Welles, Stephen Collins, Lewis J. Stadlen, Jon Korkes, Michael J. Pollard
Seen on: 30.7.2024

Plot:
Mainline is Boston’s foremost independent newspaper, but it is struggling with financing. The young and lively staff do their best to do good reporting, amid these struggles and their own interpersonal histories and relationships.

Between the Lines doesn’t have much of a plot, it is more interested in studying its particular environment and the people that move within it. Unfortunately for me and the film, I wasn’t all that interested in that or the characters.

After how much I loved Hester Street (also directed by Silver), I had high expectations for Between the Lines. Unfortunately, Between the Lines is not only very different from Hester Street in content, style or time period, it’s also a move away from the kind of films I like.

Between the Lines certainly has a lot of energy, but it is the kind of energy that exhausted me more than it energized me. It is the kind of energy films get when most of the characters talk very fast and over each other a lot, and that just doesn’t work for me. Plus, I found a lot of what plays for comedy here questionable and even outright cruel. It certainly didn’t make me laugh.

The parts that aren’t played for laughs didn’t fare much better for me, either. There is a romantic coupling here but that romance never really takes off, indicative of how the characters are never quite sure they want to give it a real try, either. That made the entire thing a little frustrating for me, too.

From what I gather, the script was written by somebody who used to work in a newspaper like the one depicted here. I can certainly imagine that there is a certain truth to the depiction. It’s just that I would have hated working there, I am pretty sure, and I didn’t enjoy myself spending my time in that environment even through a film and its limited runtime.

Summarizing: not for me.