David Denby

“Jane Fonda has performed in movies so infrequently in the last few years, and with such puritanical seriousness, that we were in danger of forgetting how many things she does well. It was frustrating to see her in such honorable projects as Godard's Tout Va Bien, Losey's version of The Doll's House, and the documentary on North Vietnam, Introduction to the Enemy, she made with Tom Hayden and Haskell Wexler, because her political and feminist beliefs were clearly acting to suppress a significant part of her personality. Jane Fonda, one of the most gifted dramatic actresses of her generation, may also be the sexiest comedienne of her generation. Years ago, in junk like Barefoot in the Park and Barbarella, she was naughty in a style that was new to American movies. She didn't snarl like Jean Harlow and she was less voluptuous than a big bad mama like Rita Hayworth; she was a leaner, tougher version of Brigitte Bardot -- a Bardot with humor and a streak of hard intelligence.

“After so much heavy political and feminist activity it must take guts for Fonda to acknowledge that earlier part of herself which she so carefully repressed. I imagine she's under a lot of pressure from all those prigs (male as well as female) who would like to see her appear only in politically correct roles, in parts that improve the "image of women. Her comeback movie, the satiric comedy Fun With Dick and Jane…, has its "serious" political side -- a rather offensively glib portrait of America as a totally corrupt society -- but that's not the basis of its appeal. Dick and Jane is an old-fashioned romantic comedy (with a perverse modern twist), and once again Jane Fonda proves herself the warmest sexual presence on the American screen….

“In the early part of the movie, as Fonda pretends in front of malicious neighbors that her collapsing life is going as well as ever, she's good at the comedy of embarrassment and petty humiliation. She's not unique here, however -- Mary Tyler Moore could do it as well. In her tight dungaree suits and I. Magnin gypsy silks (there seems to be a costume change for every scene) she's funny just to look at. Her Jane is vulgarly chic, the American bourgeoise [check spelling in Phoenix] as bitch mannequin. But when she and Segal start their crazy night-riding around Los Angeles, the brazenness of Fonda's wit begins to emerge fully. Nervous and excited after their first heist, she pulls her husband into the bathroom and chatters at him (and us) as she empties her bladder. There isn't an actress in the world who could make this so funny and unembarrassing.

“From here on out, the material is carried along by Dick and Jane's bantering love for each other, by the sexual competitiveness which, in the classic style of American movie comedy, is always the route to sexual accommodation…. [H]ere, playing against a strong actress, [Segal's] at his best doing his flustered-husband bit. Worried by the mess he's getting his wife into, he's astonished by her cool resourcefulness under fire and falls in love with her in a completely different way--she's not his helpless little pet anymore.

“…. With a decent director and better material, Fonda and Segal could become the Hepburn and Tracy of the '70s…. Fun With Dick and Jane never breaks decisively with TV cuteness. But Fonda does her best--and that remains the best there is.”

David Denby
Boston Phoenix,date ?

Molly Haskell

“Given this by now standard but ugly caper philosophy and the fact that Kotcheff’s direction is more of a liability than an asset, it’s amazing that Fun With Dick and Jane averts disaster and exudes charm as often as it does. For this, I think there is one big and one little reason, and their names are Fonda and Segal: together they generate sparks reminiscent of the sexy-romantic screwball comedy partners of the ‘30s.

“… Fonda is outrageously, deliciously, effortlessly wonderful. From the moment she appears, we know that she hs not only grown in talent, timing, and beauty, but has acquired that nth power that great movie actresses have—a way of going about their business without looking over their shoulders because they assume you are there, with them. They don’t have to reach, nudge, spell things out, communicate, because through some magical combination of generosity and confidence tinged with indifference they bring you into their lives, rather than straining to impress themselves upon yours.

“Wearing a cute little jean suit, she is standing at the bottom of an empty swimming pool, surrounded by noisy workmen. She looks up, sees her husband and says, in words we must lip-read because of the din, “You’re home early, darling.” She doesn’t pantomime the words, or exaggerate the syllables, but says them in a normal voice, as if we could hear her, and we do. From then on, without ever straining, she creates a whole, captivating character. Despite grotesque traps laid for her (a clumsy, out-of-character fashion show scene that is the most damning directorial gaffe in the film; a toilet episode, whose only conceivable raison d’etre is that it has never been done before, and whose only virtue is that now we’ve gotten it over with), despite incongruities in the script making her too hip for the Babbitts who surround her, Fonda herself is never condescending. The film is, but it also—to give credit where it is due—provides her with witty lines that actresses of late have gone begging for.

“Fonda fans know she can do anything, but only those who saw her with Redford in Barefoot in the Park (can you imagine Redford deigning to perform again in such “fluff”?) know that this is the kind of part nobody else can do. The sexy, funny girl has become a woman, and she is more exciting than ever. A star who is glamorous, kooky, sensual, grown-up, funny, and intelligent—how few there have been. [It seems to me that most stars are these.] In the past, we had Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy. But comic goddesses are a species so rare that we do not presume to complain that there are not more; we are only grateful, when one comes along, that such creatures exist at all.”

Molly Haskell
Village Voice, date?

Pauline Kael

“…. Jane Fonda looks radiant in it, but what does it say about an actress’s judgment to look so relaxed and happy in this picture—a leftover from the Nixon era, another movie telling us we’re all crooked and looking for a bigger piece of the pie?…. The mixture of counterculture politics, madcap comedy, and toilet humor is given the illusion of class by the presence of Jane Fonda and George Segal, and the tinge of smugness they confer on the material. The smile lines around Jane Fonda’s mouth are ingratiating, and her long chestnut hair makes her seem warm and friendly; that’s the extent of her performance. She plays one scene on the commode—probably because that’s the only way anybody could figure out to keep the audience watching the scene…. The attraction of this piece of junk for the stars, and for the producers, … must have been the idea that it would be popular and also “say something.” The more financially secure Hollywood people are, the more they seem to feel the need to teach us the perils of American materialism. Millionaires illustrate greed for us by showing people on the streets grabbing and crawling for a few dollars….”

Pauline Kael
The New Yorker, February 28, 1977
Taking It All In, pp. 270-71

Stanley Kauffmann

“Lately, however, Fonda has been deepening and freshening again…. [I]n three different pictures in the last two years [FWD&J, Comes a Horseman, and California Suite], her roles were well-enough written and she showed us superior acting. In the pastry-puff Fun with Dick and Jane, she bubbled. If there’s such a thing as a non-dance performance that dances off the ground with sheer spirit—and there is—she did it here….”

“I can’t quite contend that Fonda has become the first-rate artist I thought and still think is in her. For one point, she has been lax in her choice of scripts….”

Stanley Kauffmann
The New Republic, date?