Pete 'n' Tillie

PG

Released Dec 17, 1972

1 hr. 40 min.

Comedy

Drama

List

67%

6 Reviews

Tomatometer

72%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

Pete (Walter Matthau) and Tillie (Carol Burnett) are middle-aged and meet at a time in their lives when both have developed a layer of cynicism about love and relationships. Wisecracking Pete hides behind an almost pathological need to tell jokes, while Tillie is a bit too uptight to let herself go. Gradually, through various ups and downs, they become a couple, get married -- despite Pete's reservations -- and have a child. After tragedy strikes, their marriage is tested.

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steve d

It has not aged well.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The main accomplishment of Pete 'n' Tillie is the skill put into it for hitting the symmetry amongst the hilarious and the heartbreaking, between moments of earnest gravitas and other moments of priceless high comedy and even slapstick. What happens in the story is supposed to happen. Life's like that. In one go, Pete 'n' Tillie is an entertainment feat, with its high comic panache, its dexterity with bittersweet dramaturgy and its star turns for its two tremendously talented leads. The special thing about this movie is the way it merges those two tonal styles, with even more subtlety and naturalism than the films of later periods. Indeed, this is a sharp, surprisingly heartfelt and charming movie of the early '70s, with a skillfully lasting and subdued tone of melancholy. Writer-producer Julius J. Epstein has seized hold of priceless dialogue and a theme of togetherness. The title characters are two sardonically mileage-developing San Francisco pragmatists who meet at a party and like one another virtually in spite of themselves. Owing to their age, they're seasoned enough to realize that "love without irritation is just lust." They get going, wed, raise a bright son and experience a paralyzing family predicament whose subtle, poignant handling is the most appreciable thing about this offbeat love story beholden to George Stevens' superior Penny Serenade. It's a straightforward comedy that soaks up tragedy without an awkward wrinkle. This owes to the always subtle, sophisticated and refined direction of Martin Ritt, normally helming much less sentimental material, shrewdly of course. Then there is Geraldine Page, as Burnett's well-heeled friend, whose succinct, horrified charade at a police station and the subsequent catfight pack that beautiful release of laughter after a tragic peak. Like most great comics, Burnett, held in rein by a somber, down-to-earth story, is impressive, even in graver moments that feel as if the material was contrived to the point of bathos. Matthau has given more cumbersome performances but none more disarming since The Odd Couple.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

Audience Member

And a fairly, or somewhat, enjoyable french comedy called [b]Didier [/b](1997) about a dog that turns into man. Yes, nothing wrong with that. Let's call it 7/10. Pete 'n' Tillie is a story portraying the relationship between two middle aged people. Starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett. While the general atmosphere is a little stale, the dialogue never seizes to be good and sharp. It's a perfectly ok film. [img]http://sapporo.cool.ne.jp/keitty-lilas/photo/AO/peten_tillie.jpg[/img] Don Siegel's Hell is for Heroes is a reasonably good war movie, starring Steve McQueen. The Hours is full of slow empty stares and over-dramatic music (what I like to call emotional whoring). Full of pathos and melancholy, but in the middle of all that there are some great scenes, the majority of which go to Meryl Streep, but also others. Nicole Kidman is unrecognizable (in a very good way) as Virginia Woolf. Amazing what a fake nose can do. [img]http://itsb.ucsf.edu/~vcr/sk03WoolfKidmanProfile.gif[/img]

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

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Martin Ritt

Director

Walter Matthau

Pete

Carol Burnett

Tillie

Geraldine Page

Gertrude

Barry Nelson

Burt

Rene Auberjonois

Jimmy Twitchell

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Pauline Kael

New Yorker

Pete’s and Tillie’s life together is all so aseptically the middle-class ideal it looks like death.

Sep 29, 2023

Full Review

Time Out

It gets taken over by a series of soap-style catastrophes.

Jun 24, 2006

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Howard Thompson

New York Times

This is the wittiest, warmest and most ingratiating movie to appear in a long time, with a beautifully sustained and muted edge of sadness.

Rated: 4.5/5

May 9, 2005

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Steve Crum

Video-Reviewmaster.com

Character driven story with nice work by Matthau and Burnett.

Rated: 3/5

Jun 13, 2008

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TV Guide

The mixture of happiness and grief, laughter and sobs, reality and farce makes this an admirable attempt at great filmmaking.

Rated: 3.5/4

Jan 14, 2008

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Film4 Staff

Film4

Director Ritt keeps the gags coming, but it is the two leads' chemistry that makes the film work.

May 24, 2003

Full Review

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Synopsis

Pete (Walter Matthau) and Tillie (Carol Burnett) are middle-aged and meet at a time in their lives when both have developed a layer of cynicism about love and relationships. Wisecracking Pete hides behind an almost pathological need to tell jokes, while Tillie is a bit too uptight to let herself go. Gradually, through various ups and downs, they become a couple, get married -- despite Pete's reservations -- and have a child. After tragedy strikes, their marriage is tested.

Director: Martin Ritt
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 17, 1972, Original
Release Date (DVD): Apr 25, 2011