Ladyhawke (1985) • From the Vault • Contains Spoilers

Ladyhawke (1985) is Richard Donner's romantic fantasy about two lovers cursed to never truly be together. By day, Isabeau is a hawk. By night, Navarre is a wolf. The only moment they ever share in human form is a fleeting sliver of dawn and dusk. Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer star as the cursed couple, with Matthew Broderick as the thief who gets swept up in their fight to break the spell.

This week Darryl takes on a genuine eighties classic, and it's one that catches him off guard in more than one way. He's won over by the Italian locations before the story even gets going, finds himself unexpectedly moved by a divisive synth-heavy score, and has plenty to say about a romance that somehow lands even though its two leads barely share the screen as people. Expect strong opinions on Broderick's role in the film too.

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Next Review: Rooster Season 1 

Fraser steps in to cover the first season of Rooster, the HBO comedy-drama starring Steve Carell as a novelist reluctantly pulled into life on a college campus where his adult daughter teaches. A messy family dynamic, a fish-out-of-water setup and a warm, sprawling ensemble,  but can it carve out an identity of its own beyond Ted Lasso comparisons?

Thanks for listening to Frame 70 Reviews. New reviews every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, along with classics revisited in From the Vault. Every review in full at frame70.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hi podcasters, thanks for joining me today. I'm Darrell, and today we're taking a look at Ladyhawk, the 1985 film directed by Richard Donner and starring Rutka Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Matthew Broderick. Let's get into it. Let's start with the man behind the camera, because it matters here. Richard Donner's a name most people already know from somewhere else entirely. By 1985, he'd already given us Superman and the Omen, and a couple of years after Lady Hawk, he'd go on to kick off the lethal weapon films. Horror, superhero spectacle, buddy cop action. The man simply doesn't stay in one lane. So watching him turn his hand to a full-blown romantic fantasy here was one of the things I was most curious about going in. The first thing that struck me was how the film looks. This is shot in real Italian locations, proper castles, proper landscapes, and honestly, that decision alone does half the work. There's a texture to it that a studio backlot just can't fake. You believe you're in this world because you're actually looking at it, and that gives the whole film a kind of timeless quality that a lot of 80s fantasy simply doesn't have anymore. And you need that grounding because the premise here is a heartbreaker. Navarre and Isabeau are cursed by the Bishop of Aquila so that they can never truly be together. By night, Navarre becomes a wolf while Isabeau returns to her human form. By day it reverses, and Isabeau becomes a hawk while Navarre is a man. They're not spared the memory of it either, which is the cruel part. They know exactly what's happening to them and to each other, and the only moment they ever get to be together in human form is that fleeting sliver of dawn and dusk when day and night trade places. It's a beautifully cruel piece of mythology, and the film leans into it rather than softening it. What sells that tragedy is Howard and Pfeiffer. The two of them share almost no screen time together as two people, and yet the romance still lands. That's a testament to both performances. Howard plays Navarre with this quiet, controlled sorrow underneath the swagger, and Pfeiffer gives Isabeau a stillness that says more than dialogue could. You come away believing these two are devoted to each other, and they barely get to stand in the same room as themselves. Then there's Matthew Broderick as Philippe Gaston, and he's doing something quite clever here. He's not just the comic relief, he's the audience's way into this world. Everything the other characters already understand about the curse and the tragedy. Philippe is discovering right alongside us, and his humour gives the film somewhere to breathe. It could have been a clash, a wisecracking thief dropped into this melancholy fairy tale, but it works because he's our entry point rather than a distraction from it. Now the score. Particularly by one piece called She Was Sad at First. It's the cue that carries Isabeau's theme through to its fullest, weaving against Navarre's, and it does more emotional heavy lifting than almost any line of dialogue in the film. Rather than distracting me, it became one of the things I remember most. Which brings me to my frame 70 moment, and it isn't a big action beat. It's the quieter stretch built around that same piece of music, where Navarre and Isabeau are close to each other, aware of each other, and still separated by the curse. That ache of being near someone you love and unable to reach them.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Thanks for listening to Frame 70 Movie and TV reviews. If you enjoyed today's review, you can follow Frame 70 wherever you get your podcasts, and find us at frame70.com. And before we go, let's remember something that sits right at the heart of this show. Movies are subjective. The way a film impacts me might be completely different to the way it impacts you. A movie I connect with might leave someone else completely cold. A film that doesn't work for me might become one of your all-time favorites. And that's okay. That's part of what makes movies worth talking about in the first place. There are no right or wrong opinions here, only different experiences. So watch widely, stay curious, and remember, movies are subjective. Until next time, I'm Fraser, and this has been Frame Seventy.