Like most films in the career of Elaine May, the most misunderstood and underrated of New Hollywood masters, “A New Leaf” was originally a box office flop. But, unlike May’s later, even more unprofitable “Ishtar,” “A New Leaf” was a critical success right off the bat. Its failure to find a sizable theatrical audience could be chalked up not to any widespread perception that it was a disaster, but to the fact that it was simply too bold and caustic a romcom for mainstream audiences.
To this day, May’s 1971 film, which she scripted herself from a story by Jack Ritchie, is still one of the most gloriously twisted offerings in the history of romantic comedies — with that darkness applying equally to the “romantic” and “comedy” parts of the equation. A never-better Walter Matthau plays Henry Graham, an immature New York City playboy who must find a way to sustain his lavish lifestyle after spending away all his inheritance. He settles on wooing, marrying, and murdering fabulously wealthy botany professor Henrietta Lowell (May). Things, of course, don’t go according to plan, and an utterly fascinating romantic dynamic emerges between the cynical Henry and the clumsy and naive Henrietta. The kicker, though, is that the movie never alleviates the darkness underlying it all — instead, it plays the darkness for increasingly delirious and scathing humor, parodying romcom trappings while somehow coming up with its own utterly satisfying rendition. You have to see it to believe it.