SO LATE INTO THE NIGHT

Somewhat less sugary than Wallace's The Russian Rose (1981), this Washington, D.C. love-story again features a romance that endures through political/domestic obstacles--and this time those obstacles involve, in ill-coordinated tandem, everything from terrorist attacks to irresponsible newsmen to a brain-damaged spouse. Virginia Longstreet is a top White House speechwriter, a knockout beauty, and the wife of ex-basketball-player Jamie--a druggie whose attempted gun-suicide has left him a childlike, lobotomized hulk. Jeff Kidd is a CIA veteran, burned by a broken marriage, now involved in an FBI/CIA team-effort to counter terrorist attacks. And Ginny and Jeff just happen to notice each other during their solitary nighttime walks--with love slowly blooming (as well as rather tedious exchanges of life-stories). But complications mount to threaten their idyll, of course. Both must deal with guilt about Jamie--now moved from Ginny's home to an institution. Then Jeff is the agent who defuses a Washington Monument hostage-terror act--by killing all the terrorists. (More guilt.) Furthermore, a foul journalist, abetted by an unscrupulous White House security-type, starts putting the Ginny/Jeff romance in the paper--while the White House speechwriters wonder which of them is leaking stories to the press. And finally, when one of the writers is inaccurately smeared as a homosexual, Ginny pressures the Prez to publicly denounce yellow-journalism. . . while Jeff suffers a terrorist-vengeance attack but will recover to finally claim his True Love. A strange concoction--some awfully heavy matters stirred uneasily into the damp fluff--but seemingly good-hearted and serviceably packaged, with a few neat comic moments backstage at the White House.