Charles is a young man carrying a heavy load of problems and confusions. He's hopelessly in love with Laura, a woman who's recently separated from her husband and stepdaughter. He works as a "reports analyst" for the state of Utah, a boring and unfulfilling job. And his family is a teeter totter of excessive individuals: a crazy mother who repeatedly threatens or attempts suicide and a sister who's so straight that her spirit stands at right angles.
How does Charles cope? He uses laughter as a way of surviving. He and his friend Sam, a Ph.D. who clerks at a men's clothing store, are wiseacres par excellence. Perhaps that is what endears him to Laura. However, when he puts her on a pedestal, she flees the relationship. Charles builds a dollhouse to match her A-frame house and wonders why she is incapable of seeing that he loves her and has to be with her.
This intriguing eccentric story is based on Ann Beattie's novel Chilly Scenes of Winter. Director Joan Micklin Silver whose best effort to date has been "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" (one of the "American Short Stories" series for PBS) succeeds in the film version a magic of its own. John Heard's lovesick Charles is just the right blend of humor and bathos. Mary Beth Hurt's Laura convincingly inches toward independence. Peter Riegert is very funny as Charles' stepfather; and Nora Heflin's secretary is the epitome of the overeager lonely heart.