Through the Eyes of Love: On the Timelessness of Ice Castles | Chaz's Journal

CHRISTY LEMIRE: It's such a formulaic sports story, but at that point, there were so few about young women.

SHEILA O’MALLEY: Susan, I love your story about seeing it for the first time!

SUSAN WLOSZCZYNA: I was 23 and just starting my first real newspaper job in Geneva, N.Y. I barely knew anyone there and on my day off, there was a snowstorm. I decided to walk to the theater in town and there was "Ice Castles." It was just the perfect combination of everything for my loneliness. I fell into a reverie. Yes, Robby's tighty whities helped. But there also was something about Lynn-Holly Johnson that was special. She felt authentic, both on the ice and off.

CHRISTY LEMIRE: Because she wasn't a "great" actress. But I'm not sure she needed to be. You're right—there was a purity and naiveté to her that made her authentic.

SUSAN WLOSZCZYNA: I just connected with her. Also, the milieu, given that I was in the Finger Lakes area in a small, working-class town.

SHEILA O’MALLEY: I totally agree with this. She is sweet and sincere and quite believable, I thought, in some very difficult scenes (particularly the one with Colleen Dewhurst in the attic).

CHRISTY LEMIRE: And clearly they needed someone who could actually skate, but also could hold her own opposite those kinds of veterans. Right now, Margot Robbie is training to play Tonya Harding, and while she has the acting part down, she has to learn how to skate—which is even harder, I think.

SHEILA O’MALLEY: They also built in the fact that she was somewhat "behind" the other skaters. A little bit older, self-trained, not as polished. So it worked, I thought. She was good enough to make you believe that audiences would take to her.

SUSAN WLOSZCZYNA: She wasn't a goody-goody girl, either. She had sass and ambition, but never in an obnoxious way. But, since she is 16, I did wonder, seeing the movie again, if she even went to school.

SHEILA O’MALLEY: Can we talk about the score? I just re-watched it and had forgotten just how much Marvin Hamlisch's song was used as a motif throughout. It's sentimental, for sure, but dammit it works.

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