Willie & Phil

Willie & Phil is a 1980 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Michael Ontkean, Margot Kidder, and Ray Sharkey. It is an American remake of Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962).

Willie & Phil
Directed by	Paul Mazursky
Written by	Paul Mazursky
Produced by	Paul Mazursky
Starring	Michael Ontkean Margot Kidder Ray Sharkey
Cinematography	Sven Nykvist
Edited by	Donn Cambern
Music by	Claude Bolling Georges Delerue
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	August 15, 1980 (1980-08-15)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5.5 million[1]
Box office	$4,400,000[2]

Plot

The film is set in late 1970s New York City, amidst the counterculture chic of that era. Willie, a high school English teacher who plays jazz piano, and Phil, a fashion photographer, meet as they exit the Bleecker Street Cinema, where Jules et Jim has just been shown, and become friends. They both fall in love with Jeannette, a girl from Kentucky. The plot then follows the love triangle from Jules et Jim.

Cast

• Michael Ontkean – Willie Kaufman
• Margot Kidder – Jeannette Sutherland
• Ray Sharkey – Phil D'Amico
• Jan Miner – Maria Kaufman
• Tom Brennan – Sal Kaufman
• Julie Bovasso – Mrs. D'Amico
• Louis Guss – Mr. D'Amico
• Kathleen Maguire – Mrs. Sutherland
• Kaki Hunter – Patti Sutherland
• Kristine DeBell – Rena
• Jerry Hall – Karen
• Laurence Fishburne – Wilson

Critical responses

The film was reviewed by Pauline Kael in The New Yorker. "This movie is a little monument to screwed-up notions of what women are", she noted.^[3]

Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars. "In a subtle, understated sort of way, Mazursky is giving us a movie that hovers between a satirical revue and a series of lifestyle vignettes. The characters in his movie are almost exhausted by the end of the decade (weren't we all?)" he commented.^[4]

Home media and rights

Fox Video released the film on LaserDisc in the United States on March 12, 1993.^[5] On March 20, 2019, Rupert Murdoch sold most of 21st Century Fox's film and television assets to Disney,^[6] and Willie & Phil was one of the films included in the deal.^[7]