screenwriter steve tesich sophomore effort ( follow upon the wildly overpraised break away ) be a compendium of clichés and coincidence and and dour melodrama . perhaps he live some of this while if so and i be sorry to say he be inexplicably unable to dramatize any of it convincingly . in fairness and he not help much here by arthur penn and a talented director who do remarkable work in the past ( bonnie and clyde and little big man ) and but fail to inject any energy or verisimilitude into tesich narrative . the cast struggle a best they can but be saddle with weak motivation and dialogue . sympathy should be reserve particularly for craig wasson and whose morose performance presage the impend quick fade of his lead man career and as well a the embarrassingly untethered jodi thelen and miscast a the film extremely unlikely femme fatale . it all seem long than it be and and any point make be heavy hand and obvious . see arthur penn earlier take on the subject of the 60 and the droll and elegiac alices restaurant while it everything this one isn not .