Just the Way You Are

1984 "She turned a plaster cast into a glass slipper and found the courage to be somebody new... Herself"
5.9| 1h34m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 16 November 1984 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Susan is a professional flautist who has been handicapped since childhood and is forced to wear a leg brace to get around. After breaking up with her boyfriend, she accepts the offer to travel to Europe on a concert tour. While in Paris, she comes up with an idea to disguise her leg by putting it in a cast and travel on her own to the French Alps to be treated without pity. Not looking to find romance, Susan however has become the interest of Peter, a news photographer. They soon fall in love and Susan is forced to decide if she should tell Peter the truth about herself.

Genre

Comedy, Music, Romance

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Director

Édouard Molinaro

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Just the Way You Are Audience Reviews

Linkshoch Wonderful Movie
Diagonaldi Very well executed
Lawbolisted Powerful
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
jewel08 If you need any proof why Kristy McNichol never made the jump from TV star to movie star, look no further than this laughably bad "romantic" romp. Kristy was apparently going through a crisis during the shooting of this film -- and it shows. But not every fault can be blamed on her infamous "chemical imbalance." Kristy just never had the chops for the big screen. Her love scenes are painfully awkward. She looks with more lustful longing at a female ballerina than she does with studly suitors Michael Onktean and Tim Daly. Her role calls for her to play a handicapped musician, but she can't even remember to limp in many of her scenes. It's hard to believe that she was once such a bright star. She's barely going through the motions here, and it ain't pretty.
arlenowitz Great one-liners in this timeless romantic comedy of a girl destined to wear a metal brace her entire life, which has caused her to feel "different" from other girls. But she comes to have an ingenious idea to change her destiny and possibly, just possibly find romance and maybe even love. For the first time in her life she experiences life in it's splendor, ups, downs, fears that she faces, but all in all, experiences things she never thought were possible. This film always puts a smile on my face. I've searched and searched for it on DVD, but no luck yet. Hopefully, it will be made or has already been made in DVD format. I highly recommend it.
dwr246 Given the title, I expected a little more in common with the Billy Joel song of the same name. But while the heroine at one points tells her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend that he'll find someone to love him just the way he is, her own discovery of that fact is somewhat unclear.Susan Berlanger (Kristi McNichol) is a pretty, talented flautist, who, unfortunately wears a leg brace. Because her disability is visible, Susan is always treated differently, to the point where she begins to feel that people don't see her, they just see her disability. This is also why her love life has been a disaster. She is all set to marry her gay friend, Frank (Tim Daly), in order to help him hide his sexuality to get ahead in business, but decides not to when she realizes that the marriage won't meet her - or his - sexual needs. After she and her best friend, Lisa (Kaki Hunter) experience a series of disastrous relationships, Susan gets booked on a European tour. While in France, Susan hits upon an idea to find out how people will react if they don't know she is disabled - hide the disability. So, she gets a doctor to put a cast on her bad leg, and heads off to a ski resort. Once there, she meets an assortment of colorful characters: Nicole (Catherine Salviat), a single woman having an affair with a married man who stands her up so that she and Susan have to share a room; Francois Rossignol (Andre Dussollier), a former skier who lost a leg; Peter Nichols (Michael Ontkean), a handsome professional photographer there to shoot a ski competition; and Bobbie (Alexandra Paul), Peter's insufferable girlfriend. As Susan's vacation progresses, she does all kinds of things she's never done before, including winning a ski race. Peter's growing attraction to Susan causes his relationship with Bobbie to break up. And while the feelings are mutual, Susan begins to feel uneasy that she is deceiving Peter, but can't figure out how to tell him about her disability. Will she, or will they part without Peter ever knowing? The premise is intriguing, in that the only way Susan can find out how people will feel about her is by hiding her disability. And yet, once she does that, at some point, she will have to come clean about it. Unfortunately, her revelation is done in such an anticlimactic way, that the viewer is left unsure what, if anything, she has learned as a result of her stay at the ski resort. Also, the movie has a disjointed feel to it, leaving the viewer wondering what Susan's bad relationships in America had to do with her adventures in France. Fortunately, the film moves along at a good pace, the action is fun, and the characters are likable, so you don't care too much that it doesn't have the depth it could. But it did leave me wondering how much better it could have been had the writers decided to explore more of Susan's self discovery.The acting, overall, was good. McNichol never fails to give a pleasant performance, and she makes Susan likable in spite of her shortcomings. Her injection of humor into Susan's situation is exceptionally well done. Ontkean makes a wonderful leading man, playing Peter as someone who definitely looks beneath the surface and who is far more interested in what he finds there. Salviat and Dussollier are delightful as people with distinctly European sensibilities, who completely confuse Susan. Hunter does a nice job with Lisa, giving us a woman who knows her shortcomings, and has learned to live with them. The only weak performance was Alexandra Paul as Bobbie, who was so one dimensional that it was painful. While Bobbie was indeed shallow and self absorbed, a good portrayal of her would have given the viewer some sympathy for her losing her man. Paul's performance makes you want to applaud as she stamps off after throwing her final tantrum. The rest of the supporting cast does a good job of keeping things light.Visually, it's a lovely film, especially the ski resort, which has an air of leisure and celebration completely appropriate to the action taking place there.Overall, this is a fun film, and a very enjoyable one, but it still leaves the nagging question of how much better it could have been had it paused to do a little more exploration of Susan's self discovery, and shown you that she was indeed lovable just the way she was.
rkuntz This movie is about a flutist that has a lame leg. She wants to see if people would treat her differently if they didn't know she was handicapped. So she talks a French doctor into putting a cast on her leg. She does and decides to go into the Mountains to a ski Resort. She finds love, friendship and finds life. Great movie I like Kristy in this movie. The music keeps you into the movie. I still watch it every time I see it on. Something to watch when it is cold outside and want something to watch that makes you laugh. Romance and comedy mixed well. Enjoy!!!