Linda and Burt Pugach are the subjects of "Crazy Love."
(Credit: Magnolia/Shoot the Moon)
- Running time:
- 92 minutes
- Rated:
- PG-13
- Director:
- Dan Klores
- Genre:
- Documentary
- Official Movie Web Site:
- http://www.crazylovefilm.com/
- Overall User Rating:
-
(0 ratings)
The non-fiction film's subjects are Burt and Linda Pugach. When Burt first meets Linda, he is a married 30-year-old lawyer, nebbishy in looks but wealthy, while she is a 20-year-old beauty with a checkered family background. The two carry on an affair, until Linda ends it when Burt fails to divorce his wife. Madly possessive, Burt hires a trio of goons to throw a container of lye in Linda's face, leaving her blind and disfigured.
As if that wasn't enough to merit exclamatory crime-story headlines, what follows is even stranger: Burt, after serving a prison sentence, proposes to Linda on a TV newscast—and she accepts!
Interviews with Linda in which she admits deep insecurities over whether she's worthy of any man due to her facial disfigurement seem to confirm the co-dependency that allows for a marriage like this to survive. However, through glimpses of Burt and Linda in their daily life, it appears that the couple ultimately achieved some sort of contentment. She nags at him, and he complies with her every demand, which Linda confides to the camera is the greatest possible revenge.
This raises the question: have the Pugaches, despite seeming so unhealthy for each other, really made their relationship work behind closed doors? It's an idea so provocative it compensates for the movie's stylistic laziness (there are lots of talking-head interviews with acquaintances of the couple) and turns "Crazy Love" into an intriguing cinematic Rorschach test.
You can take 100 audience members, and likely get 100 different opinions on these crazy lovers.
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