Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna wrote and star in this story of two hopelessly lost souls who find one another. Each is the product of a dysfunctional home and each has struggled to find an anchor in this world. Their adult years are filled with failure and heartache and endless searching ... until they find each other.This comedy/drama is a showcase for Renee Taylor who mines much of her own life for the character of Panda Gold, a hilariously untalented woman yearning to become a star and with a stage mother (Helen Verbit) to end all stage mothers. Bologna stars as Giggy Panimba, the coddled mama's boy who also fails at everything he tries ... including entering a seminary ... with his mama (Olympia Dukakis) right behind him.They meet in a group therapy session and form an on-and-off alliance against the world that may or may not lead to a happy ending.Taylor is funny and heartbreaking as she haplessly veers from job to job, always sure stardom and happiness await her. Her night club act in which she asks the coy question, "who am I now"? while doing a terrible impersonation of Rita Hayworth singing "Fire Down Below" is so bad it's funny. Bologna is appalled and tells her the act is terrible, but nothing penetrates, and she persists in thinking herself supremely talented. Audiences are just too dumb to get her act.Co-stars include Paul Sorvino and Louis Zorich as the fathers, Peggy Pope, Ron Carey, Despo, and Norman Shelley as group members. Look fast for Adam Arkin, Candy Azzara, Eddie Barth, and Nancy Andrews.In real life, the couple won an Oscar nomination and Writer's Guild nomination for the film version of their play "Lovers and Other Strangers" and earned another Writer's Guild nomination for this film.Wonderful film.

Renee Taylor and Joe, I'm full of bologna, star in this film which they both wrote.What's all the excitement here? Basically, this is the story of 2 born-losers from totally dysfunctional families.They meet at a group therapy session. There is definite chemistry between them but all hell breaks loose when they go to his house and meet his Italian family.There is really superb acting here by Olympia Dukakis and Paul Sorvino, as Joe's parents. Outbursts at their table are quite common, but after all, it all seems to boil down to the differences in religion as the two never let go of the fact that Miss Taylor is Jewish.The scene at the Jewish funeral for Taylor's father was absolutely obnoxious.The therapy session seasons are comical, but if this is a biography, the two should not have let their dirty laundry out.

Saw this film for the first time tonight, on Turner Movie Classics.Having missed the first few minutes, and altogether ignorant of the film, I didn't know that it was 30 years old. But the principal's bright orange, full-length coat of an unidentified material, brought on a rush of uncertainty. She is no beauty, this woman - yet she reminds me of (somebody) Derisher, of "Nanny", only rubber-faced and unpretty.There's a great deal in common and feel with Neil Simmon's plays - the pain and torment of love among the unloveable, e.g., the girl friend kicks her boy friend in the groin and asks, "How much do you love me now?"). The parental years of the principals are identical to "Torchlight Trilogy" - grotesque and self-parody. The principal's vulnerability is totally believable and rather marvelous.Thirty years on, there's a lot of elemental clinical psychologyto "Made for Each Other". And one wants to keep that in mind.The Neil Simmon-like crying scene at the end was highly effective and moving until a moment before the clench, when one realized that one was a voyeur to a dreadful, cathartic and eventually successful, if not somewhat mangled, love match.I agree that this is "Like real life" but it's also Felinni-esque and somewhat grotesque. Probably the most moving scene for me was the New Year's Eve dinner scene when the mother gets hysterical, and her son leaves the room to tell her to friggin' SHUT UP! Killing. --And yet highly poignant with the poor Jewish guest sitting there getting slayed.I didn't dislike the movie, and did laugh out loud at times. It was utterly professional at all times, never manipulative - but there is a sense of passe to it that goes beyond the orange lip stick and tomato-red bola. En fin, glad that I saw it.

I saw this film once when it can out in 1971 and it has been in the back of my mind all these years. A super comedy that is all the more funny because it deals with real people like you and I. No fancy settings or beautiful people, two "misfits" careen through life tied together by the bonds of love, surviving all that the world can dish out. A real jewel of a film, wish it were on VHS.