Nice Boys Do

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

MAKING LOVE

Directed by Arthur Hiller

Screenplay by Barry Sandier

Claire loves Zack and Zack loves Claire. Her career in television, his as a doctor are both going nicely, and they have just bought this adorable house (a little too expensive, but why not?) where they can listen to Gilbert and Sullivan records and maybe start to have little Claires and Zacks who will be as squeaky-nice and handsomely boring as they are.

But what's this? Zack (Michael Ontkean) seems to be cruising the gay bars, looking wistful. Is it possible that what looked like just another untrue domestic romance is going to turn into a problem picture? Not to worry. The people who made this picture are not interested in tragedy or even human messiness. They are determined to prove not only that "nice boys do," but that homosexuals can be as well-adjusted and as middle class as anyone else. Thus Zack, after leaving Claire (Kate Jackson) for a muscular writer, eventually settles down with a lawyer. They sit around, one reading his medical journals, the other studying legal briefs, both looking as if they had just swallowed The Official Preppy Handbook. Claire ends up married to an unflighty sort with a child ascamper at her skirts. Everybody feels much better, and all because they were patient and tolerant and understanding with one another.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. But rarely has passion been so dispassionately treated on the screen, and rarely has a determination to be nonexploitational resulted in such sterility. There is more humanity on TV's Dating Game. And possibly more truth about the pain, bawdiness and lunacy that attend the business of "making love," no matter what your sexuality is. --By Richard Schickel

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