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Bad Manners

Play trailer Poster for Bad Manners R 1997 1h 28m Comedy Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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83% Tomatometer 12 Reviews 43% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
When married professors Wes (David Strathairn) and Nancy (Bonnie Bedelia) invite fellow academic Matt (Saul Rubinek) and his girlfriend, Kim (Caroleen Feeney), over for dinner, the gathering soon descends into an emotionally charged evening. Nancy and Matt are former lovers, a fact that makes Wes tense, and things get worse when the uptight host suspects that Kim has stolen $50 from him. As these and other issues surface, the film points to problems inherent in relationships and in academia.
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Bad Manners

Critics Reviews

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Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 01/01/2000
3/4
Wickedly funny. Go to Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 07/17/2005
2/5
Andy Klein Los Angeles CityBeat 08/18/2004
4/5
Philip Martin Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 07/30/2002
3/5
Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews 06/15/2002
A
A delightfully bitchy black comedy. Go to Full Review Mary Ann Brussat Spirituality & Practice 03/02/2002
A riveting ethical drama with smashing performances from the four lead characters. Go to Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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04/20/2012 Bad, boring and bloody awful! See more 08/28/2009 To be fair the context in which I saw this was late night on tv. I kept expecting it to become soft porn the way movies at that time sometimes do. It didn't. Instead it was an exploration of trust. Sort of like the play 'proof' but with ethnomusicology instead of mathematical theory. a 'quote' of an old religious composition appears in a contemporary composition that has been created by computer programs from random sequences or something. also $50 goes missing. mistrust makes everything descend into a chaos of accusations and interpersonal misconduct between wordy academics. the moral: don't invite ex lovers to stay over. come on kids that's an easy one. the other moral: probably when there's an ethnomusicologist character giving a dissertation at harvard it's not going to turn into hilarious soft porn. oops. See more 01/18/2008 I think me and Leonard Maltin are the only people who saw this great character study. Some have called it "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"-lite and I can see the comparison. Wonderful performances all around especially by the always underrated Bonnie Bedelia. See more 09/24/2007 Really clever little movie which I randomly watched on tv at 3am. See more 04/29/2006 (***): [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img] See more Read all reviews
Bad Manners

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Cast & Crew

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Jonathan Kaufer

Director

David Strathairn

Wes

Bonnie Bedelia

Nancy

Saul Rubinek

Matt

Caroleen Feeney

Kim Matthews

Julie Harris

Professor Harper

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Bad Manners

Bad Manners (1997) View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis When married professors Wes (David Strathairn) and Nancy (Bonnie Bedelia) invite fellow academic Matt (Saul Rubinek) and his girlfriend, Kim (Caroleen Feeney), over for dinner, the gathering soon descends into an emotionally charged evening. Nancy and Matt are former lovers, a fact that makes Wes tense, and things get worse when the uptight host suspects that Kim has stolen $50 from him. As these and other issues surface, the film points to problems inherent in relationships and in academia.
Director
Jonathan Kaufer
Producer
J. Todd Harris, Alan Kaplan, Stephen Nemeth
Screenwriter
David Gilman
Distributor
Phaedra Cinema
Production Co
Davis Entertainment Classics
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 25, 1997, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 21, 2019
Runtime
1h 28m
Sound Mix
Surround, Dolby
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