Summer of Stars is a MovieJawn celebration of actors that have shined on the silver screen. Follow along as we count down some of our favorite players from various eras in the magical cosmos of cinema!

by Liz Locke, Staff Writer

If you have any preconceived notions regarding Robert De Niro’s filmography, it most likely involves him playing a mobster, an unhinged psychopath, or the straight man in comedies that satirize those mobster/psychopath roles. Analyze This and Meet the Parents simply aren’t as funny unless you’ve already seen Taxi Driver, or Goodfellas, or Cape Fear, or any of De Niro’s other numerous dramatic turns. But there’s a movie that comes out of left field, one that’s neither dramatic nor funny, but simply, unabashedly, romantic. His little 1984 gem Falling in Love was a recent discovery for me, and it’s officially upended any ideas I once had about the actor.

Evoking films such as Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset and Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, Falling in Love stars De Niro and Meryl Streep as two suburban commuters who share a train car into Manhattan. After a series of crossed paths and near-misses, they finally meet after crashing into each other in the doorway of a Rizzoli bookstore.  She ends up with his book about gardening, he leaves with her sailing tome, each presenting the wrong coffee table book to their respective spouses come Christmas morning. It isn’t until months later that they cross paths on the train again, vaguely recognizing one another while laughing over the bookstore incident. The two begin a tentative friendship, ever so slowly revealing the cracks in their home lives as they grow closer. De Niro is charming and shy, his character Frank wanting so badly to arrange another meeting with Streep’s Molly, while she tries to ignore the brewing attraction between them. Eventually, things boil over, they reveal the emotional affair to their respective spouses, and both must decide whether to take the big leap into each other’s arms or try to save their crumbling marriages.

I love seeing De Niro in this type of role because romantic lead is not something he frequently gets the opportunity to play. Paired with Streep again (following 1978’s The Deer Hunter), the onscreen chemistry between the two is simply electric. These are actors who are obviously comfortable with each other, working at the top of their game, and it shows. I’m amazed this film never gets discussed within the context of great cinema love stories because it’s got all the elements—major stars, intense pining, romantic train scenes, even a goddamn bookstore meet-cute (be still my heart!!!). This quiet rumination on love, attraction, and morality hits all the right notes, making these larger-than-life actors seem like real people in the throes of a major emotional crisis. However, De Niro and Streep never go for the cheap drama. In fact, we might not even fully understand the lovers’ turmoil without the addition of Dianne Wiest and Harvey Keitel in the best friend/sounding board roles. It’s weird to see De Niro reunited with his Taxi Driver nemesis, day-drinking and talking about relationships in a fancy Manhattan restaurant, but also kind of fun. Somehow, those mean streets got cleaned up, while pimps and “made men” became gentlemen. 

I love discovering a movie star’s hidden filmography because it gives me a chance to see that person in a new light. Robert De Niro is more than the guy who plays gangsters or a psychos, or the guy who makes jokes about gangsters and psychos. Now I can think of him as an earnest leading man who finds romance where he least expects it, who searches crowded train cars for the love of his life, agonizing over picking up the phone to call her on a rainy night because doing so would shatter the illusion that this was ever a meaningless almost-affair.  De Niro doesn’t always have to be a hero or a villain, dodging explosions and gunfire, using his fists like battering rams. Falling in Love shows us he’s capable of playing an ordinary guy who’s just trying to muddle through life as best he can; the one still yearning for that woman on the train who somehow felt like the answer to everything.