Shoot the moon
(Warning: plot, surprise twists, and finale discussed in detail)
Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972), about Jewish up-and-comer Lenny Cantrow (Charles Grodin) and his schemes to put aside newlywed wife Lila Kolodny (Jeannie Berlin, the director's daughter) in favor of WASP coed Kelly Corcoran (Cybill Shepherd), has been compared to Mike Nichols' classic The Graduate (1967) for obvious reasons: both Nichols and May have been longtime comic collaborators; both their pictures (his first, her second) feature societal outsiders trying to wriggle their way inside; both pictures are comedies, instagram photos of the American milieu they are set in--'60s California, '70s New York and Minnesota (with a brief detour through Miami Beach) respectively.
