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Parents' guide to, up close and personal.

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Common Sense Media Review

Glitz! Glamour! Love! TV news ethics?

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 14+?

Plugs for real-life network anchors and TV entertainment and trade magazines.

Social drinking.

One F-word, "s--t" numerous times, and vulgar reference to female brea

Bedroom scenes; a montage of lovemaking, but with little more explicitly shown t

A prison riot, with vicious beatings shown at a distance or on fuzzy monitors, a

Any Positive Content?

The lead characters pay at least some lip service to compassionate and well-info

Parents need to know that there is sex between the two lead characters, one of whom is a domineering, twice-divorced man, the other a former beauty queen who fakes her journalistic credentials to get a job in TV. Despite the dangers of being too near an open mic, characters swear pretty frequently for a PG-13 movie. You'll find violence in a prison uprising and in battle zones, and there are subplots about authority figures -- governors, local politicos, even a White House -- that are corrupt and need to be exposed. A key character is killed along the way.

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Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

One F-word, "s--t" numerous times, and vulgar reference to female breasts.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Bedroom scenes; a montage of lovemaking, but with little more explicitly shown than bare shoulders.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

A prison riot, with vicious beatings shown at a distance or on fuzzy monitors, and the heroine threatened. Glimpses of dead bodies afterwards. Ditto for a South American shootout.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

The lead characters pay at least some lip service to compassionate and well-informed journalism. Warren is an overconfident womanizer (pre-marital sex with Tally, post-divorce sex with Joanne). Sally doesn't seem able to do a good job without his controlling presence.

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What's the Story?

Sallyanne Atwater ( Michelle Pfeiffer ) is a former beauty contestant from Nevada who becomes the personal assistant to hotshot Miami news producer Warren Justice ( Robert Redford ). Justice mentors his ambitious protégé, first as a weather girl, then as a field reporter. Sally has to call herself Tally, because that's how a misprint on the station's teleprompter introduced her. Warren still occasionally sees his ex-wife (Kate Nelligan), but he falls for Tally. They often clash and eventually Warren leaves the station when his pride is hurt. But when a story they're supposed to be working on together turns dangerous, Warren comes riding back like a white knight to rescue Tally.

Is It Any Good?

The good news: Up Close and Personal is a sumptuously old-school, glossy, larger-than-life romance that Hollywood does so well. The bad news: It's a sumptuously old-school, glossy, larger-than-life romance that Hollywood does so well -- meshed uncomfortably with portrayals of crusading TV news reporters and their coverage of riots, wars, and politics.

The two-faced script focuses more on Warren's romance with dream-girl Tally than news journalism, and it's the man who takes the lead in just about everything. Tally can't seem to make a right move without Warren's constant coaching and criticism. Yet some kids who get into the film's charming leads and whirlwind pace might be tempted towards journalism as a career.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the messages of journalistic substance over style, and Warren's boot-camp lessons in being a crusading reporter. Do his arrogant actions match his heroic words? Would he seem so brash and compelling if he were played by an actor far less handsome than Robert Redford? Does the news you watch follow his sterling example? You could also have kids read about the life of Jessica Savitch and determine if the lessons in that story are at all similar to the ones in this movie.

Movie Details

In theaters : January 3, 1996
On DVD or streaming : September 14, 1999
Cast : Kate Nelligan , Michelle Pfeiffer , Robert Redford
Director : John Avnet
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Touchstone Pictures
Genre : Drama
Run time : 124 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : brief strong language, some sensuality and depictions of violence.
Last updated : April 4, 2022

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Up Close And Personal Review

21 Jun 1996

126 minutes

Up Close And Personal

Based very loosely on Golden Girl, the biography of NBC anchorwoman Jessica Savitch who was dispatched to the great newsroom in the sky by way of a car crash in 1983, this romantic offering comes not only, one suspects, with much of the truth shaved off, but also advocating the theory that behind every successful woman is a man operating the strings.

Pfeiffer is Sally Attwater, the overly eager, bubbly blonde country girl who lands a job at a local TV newsroom after her demo tape catches the eye of more experienced newsman Warren Justice (Redford). Through a mixture of ingenuity and sheer homespun cheek, she soon finds herself on screen, going from presenting the weather (clad in a sou'wester) to covering local beauty contests, at the same time undergoing a name change from Sally to Tally after an autocue slip. Meanwhile, Justice becomes her mentor, inspiring her to swap her initial automotive presenting style for something altogether more human, and adopting a relationship that spills off camera as rapidly as her career skyrockets.

As you might expect, this is streaked with overtones of Redford's previous romantic foray The Way We Were, with much footage of the couple sharing quality time in picture-postcard settings obviously aimed at the triple-ply hanky brigade. Fortunately, both leads give credible enough performances - Pfeiffer, in particular, reads the news like a natural - to cut through the mire of slush, while a host of supporting players add some much-needed edge, especially Stockard Channing's splendidly bitchy news anchor.

Where the film slips up is in its valiant efforts to spice up what is ultimately a straightforward romantic drama by injecting a vein of social conscience - a lengthy prison riot, for example is dragged out to such extremes that it fails to convince. Ultimately, though, while both Redford and Pfeiffer are capable, they are deserving of stronger stuff than this kind of Sunday afternoon time-filling movie.