'Only the Lonely' At 30: A Forgotten John Candy Gem Loaded With Untapped Potential

At the risk of invoking a cliché, “Only the Lonely” feels like the kind of movie they just don’t make anymore: a modest, unassuming, character-driven comedy/drama but produced and released by a major studio (20th Century Fox, in this case), and featuring a major star (John Candy) playing somewhat against type. Yet even when it was released, 30 years ago this week, “Only the Lonely” was a long shot – a blank check project, as they say these days, written by Fox as a reward for the massive success of “Home Alone.” That film was written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus; this one was produced by Hughes, and written and directed by Columbus. It landed in theaters with a thud, and that’s a shame because it hints at roads its director and star could have taken, and didn’t.

Columbus’ script is a “Marty” riff, the story of Danny Muldoon (Candy), a Chicago cop – just a guy who “drives the wagon,” don’t worry – who lives in an Irish Catholic neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, and still lives with his mother Rose (the legendary Maureen O’Hara), even though he’s 38 and should have his own place and his own life, rather than living in thrall to her guilt trips. But he is, and he does; throughout the narrative, he’s haunted by nightmarish fantasies of the danger he’ll put his poor mother in, merely by abandoning her for even a moment.

Those bits are broad and sometimes silly, but they illustrate the point. Columbus expertly gives us a sense of their relationship, right away, by dramatizing the morning routine this mother and son share, in which he goes out for danishes and a newspaper and a Lotto ticket. He’s a man in a pleasant state of neutrality; when his brother (Kevin Dunn) insists, “You deserve better,” he’s firm in his response: “I don’t want better.”

But he does, and he finds the better that he wants in Theresa Luna (Ally Sheedy, another Hughes alum). She’s the daughter of the local funeral parlor owner, and she does make-up for the bodies – but not just any make-up, movie star make-up, and we first meet her in a lovely scene that finds her watching a Clark Gable movie for inspiration while working on her current client. This is when he first attempts to chat her up, in a scene of real vulnerability and openness; “I’ll make it easy for you give, you a list of possible excuses,” he assures her, immediately going into a defensive crouch, and it’s the moment when the performance becomes something special. Candy, here and throughout the picture, is working in a mode of emotional rawness, hidden under the thinnest layer of self-deprecating humor – a mode Hughes had himself brought out of the actor in “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.”

And this feels like the natural extension of that performance, especially when he’s reprimanding himself on his first date with Theresa thus: “I’ve been Mr. Motor Mouth all night long, and gee, I’m sorry.” But you can’t blame Columbus for recognizing, and tapping into, Candy’s reservoir of kindness and warmth, and contrasting his chattiness with Sheedy’s reserve; “You don’t wanna hear about me,” she assures him. “It’s boring.” When their first date is kind of a flop, she takes the bullet for it: “I have this introverted kind of thing,” she confesses, and if this is Candy riffing on “Planes, Trains,” it’s also Sheedy riffing on “The Breakfast Club.”

So it’s an unlikely romance, but to his credit, Columbus never treats it as such, and the way he handles Candy’s size is sort of charming. It’s acknowledged; a couple of gags are even built around it. But the picture is never mean about his plus size, nor (more importantly) does it presume that she doesn’t find him attractive because of it. It’s just a fact about him, like the fact that they both still live with their parents, or that his is such a monster.

“Rose, I realize you know it’s the ‘90s,” the priest tells her. “I just don’t know if you know it’s the 1990s.” Rose is, as they say, a piece of work: a self-proclaimed “truth-teller,” casually ethno-phobic (“Oh that, she’s got a very eccentric vocabulary,” Danny explains, apologetically), and she does not hit it off with her son’s new “dago” girlfriend. As his dedication to his mother becomes clearer, Theresa asks, not unreasonably, “Are we ever gonna be alone?” And this is the central question of the movie: can true love can prevail, when familial obligation and guilt is consistently waiting in the wings?

If you’ve seen a movie or two, you know the answer, but that doesn’t mean the journey isn’t worth taking. It’s especially worth it for O’Hara, the charismatic beauty of “The Quiet Man” who was lured out of a 20-year retirement to play the role of a woman grappling with her own mortality and impending (and long-delayed) solitude, who complains to her son about the little old ladies who spend their days waiting in lines for confession and groceries, and then twists the knife: “Do you know why they spend so much time standing in line? Because there’s no one else in the world they can talk to.” It’s a casually heartrending performance, of a woman who is fundamentally flawed, but still sympathetic, almost in spite of herself.

And much of that sympathy comes from Candy: the love with which he regards her, the way he talks to her, even speaks to her. And yet, when they finally have it out – and you know it’s coming – he lets her have it, with a memory he’s had in his pocket since he was a child, and an explanation he felt due, and a burden of guilt he felt she deserves. It’s a genuinely powerful piece of acting, topped only by the scene that follows, when he shows up at Theresa’s window with apologies and hat in hand, and promises, “I just wanna say that I’ll always stand by you, and I’ll never let you down again. I swear.” He absolutely breaks your heart.

It’s not that “Only the Lonely” doesn’t provide Candy with opportunities to be funny – there’s a whole bit with him and James Belushi accidentally dropping a dead body out of a window, for goodness’ sake. But it’s a role that lets him dive deeper into the pool of melancholy lurking right under the comic surface of his character in “Planes, Trains” (and, to a lesser extent, “Uncle Buck”). It could’ve been a bellwether for more serious work in Candy’s career – he’d appeared briefly in Oliver Stone’s “JFK” a year earlier, in an electrifying turn that indicated the vast untapped well of characters within him – and for Columbus as well, who writes and directs the picture with sweetness and sensitivity, extending nothing but care for his key trio, and the colorful characters around him.

Alas, no one saw “Only the Lonely”; it came in fifth on opening weekend, Memorial Day 1991 (behind “Backdraft,” “What About Bob,” “Hudson Hawk,” and “Thelma & Louise”), and its total domestic haul was just north of $21 million. That’s not bad, but it wasn’t “Home Alone” money, so Columbus and Hughes quickly retreated to those safe waters; the next year, they released “Home Alone 2: Lost In New York,” and neither man would ever make another film as heartfelt again. But it’s fun to imagine the alternate career Columbus might’ve had if “Only The Lonely” had connected to a wider audience – or if Candy had lived long enough to further explore the potential it hints at.