Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing movie storyline. American Walter Elbertson (Timothy Bottoms), in his late teens, is feeling lost within his family of overachievers. Thirty-something Englishwoman Lila Fisher (Dame Maggie Smith) is emotionally repressed. The two meet on their respective vacations in Spain, when, on the spur of the moment, Walter decides to ditch his overly regimented cycling tour group and join the bus tour group of which Lila is a part.
They hardly speak to each other during the first few days, and when they do, they make each other nervous, since each is scared of life. In spite of their fears of life or largely because of it, they enter into a friendship that blossoms into a romance, however rocky the road to that romance is. Out of circumstance, they abandon the bus tour and travel together through Spain on their own. Their relationship is put to the test of outside scrutiny when they meet and have an extended stay with a Spanish Duke (Don Jaime de Mora y Aragón).
A touching tale of love between misfits, this is the story of a lonely spinster with a terminal illness and a college drop-out with family problems who meet and fall in love. This film is sensitively handled with a subtlety not usually found in this type of movie. Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing is a 1973 American comedy-drama film directed by Alan J. Pakula. It is often categorized as a drama, but contains many comic elements. Maggie Smith and Timothy Bottoms star.
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
Directed by: Alan J. Pakula
Starring: Maggie Smith, Timothy Bottoms, Emiliano Redondo, Charles Baxter, Margaret Modlin, May Heatherly, Lloyd Brimhall, Don Jaime de Mora y Aragón, Andrés Monreal, Elmer Modlin
Screenplay by: Alvin Sargent
Cinematography by: Geoffrey Unsworth
Film Editing by: Russell Lloyd
Art Direction by: Enrique Alarcón
Makeup Department: Mariano García Rey, Antonia López
Music by: Michael Small
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: April 19, 1973
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