Falling in Love

De Niro and Streep play two Manhattan commuters who fall in love, Brief Encounter style; but to invoke Coward and Lean's film is to realise just how thin and unsatisfying this one is. Coincidences are difficult to get right in any romantic movie, yet here they are piled on without regard for sense or subtlety, while the script is so concerned to give its big names equal screen time that it fails to establish an innocuous but hardly compelling love story of the old school. De Niro merely coasts, while Streep's woman-at-the-emotional-crossroads now seems as familiar as a stale variety turn.