Double Feature: ‘Heartburn’ and ‘Ironweed’ Couldn’t Be Any More Different In Subject Matter, But Share Powerhouse Performances From Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep

In the glory days of theater-going, movie fans would sit back, relax, and enjoy not one but two features at their favorite movie theater. While it’s more difficult to find in our multiplex era, the wide variety of movie titles on streaming services means movie lovers can have their own double feature in the comfort of their own homes — and we’re here to help you decide what to watch. In this edition of the Decider Double Feature, we celebrate two of the greatest living American actors and their two collaborations together in 1986’s Heartburn and 1987’s Ironweed.

As we discussed in last week’s column, Nora Ephron, generally speaking, gave no fucks. In 1979, when she was pregnant with her second child, she discovered that her husband Carl Bernstein was having an affair. Without worrying about pettiness or the scandal it would bring, she wrote a book about it. Heartburn, her 1983 novel, is technically a work of fiction; it is about a food writer in New York who falls for a political columnist, marries him, gives up her life in Manhattan for a dreary and dull Washington, DC, and during her second pregnancy discovers that her husband is cheating on her. As Carrie Fisher once said, “Take your broken heart and make it into art.” Nora Ephron did just that — and meanwhile, her career blew up, and she started making movies.

After co-writing the script for 1983’s Silkwood (and earning an Oscar nomination for it), Ephron re-teamed with director Mike Nichols and star Meryl Streep to turn Heartburn into a movie. Joining the cast was Jack Nicholson, playing the Carl Bernstein-esque Mark Forman to Streep’s Ephron-esque Rachel Samstat. The result is an incredibly funny and biting film about marriage, starring two of the best actors of their respective generations as an ultimately doomed pair whose passion for one another delves into chaos.

Neither Nicholson or Streep are known for being comedic players, although some of their best roles have been funny ones. But with a director like Mike Nichols and a writer like Nora Ephron, the skills these two stars bring to the film are rooted in their incredible acting talents. Nicholson is charming and sleazy; you believe he’s the kind of guy who is famously single and still manages to swindle women into his game of serial monogamy.

Streep’s Rachel is neurotic, self-doubting, sheepishly along for the ride; she’s already a bit chaotic before her life falls apart, which makes her ultimate mania so funny. Ephron herself was a cynical romantic; she wrote a lot of romantic comedies, and you get the sense that she believed very deeply in the power of love. But she also knew that it could fall apart at any moment. And with her credo “everything is copy,” life’s disappointments and disasters would always make for great stories after the fact.

Which is, despite the social trouble Heartburn caused, the film (and the book, read that excellent book!) feels like such a gift. (Bernstein himself decried his ex-wife when the novel was published, but it’s difficult to have sympathy for him after he ruined her life.) Take it from someone who has watched this film on a near-loop following a breakup: having Nora Ephron guide you through romantic disappointment and heartbreak is incredibly healing; so, too, is watching it all personified by Meryl Streep, who delivers my personal favorite performance of her career as Rachel, balancing the bitter with the sweet, knowing full well she has to pull herself together again somehow.

If Heartburn finds solace in life’s miseries, Ironweed does the exact opposite. Also starring Nicholson and Streep (who lead a great cast that also includes Tom Waits, Diane Venora, Fred Gwynne, and Nathan Lane), Héctor Babenco’s adaptation of William Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is bleak and dreary — its depiction of Depression-era Albany might be how Ephron saw Washington when she had to move there — but it also offers two acting titans at the top of their game.

Nicholson is the lead in this one, playing Francis Phelan, a former baseball star whose life is in shambles. I don’t mean that lightly: tormented by the death of his son for which he is to blame, Francis is a down-and-out bum who staggers through life (and Albany) in search of companionship and drink. He finds both many times throughout the film, along with visions of the dead people in his past who he has wronged in some form or another. It’s staggering to see Nicholson play such a pitiful, helpless figure; he is usually so full of vigor and bravado (the latter of which he still imbues in his performance as Francis, particularly when he reminisces about the more triumphant moments in his life).

Streep plays Helen Archer, Francis’s fellow bum, drinking companion, and occasional lover. Her personal history is not as defined in the film, which allows for Streep to do her best work by filling in the gaps in her performance. Not yet forty when she filmed the movie, it’s impressive to see Streep play a woman who has been so beaten down by the world that she’s practically ageless. But there’s a glimmer under all that grit, particularly when Helen sings a full-throated number in a gin mill, leading a drunken sing-along that nearly steals the movie away from Nicholson.

One of the saddest moments of Ironweed comes at the end of that great scene, when it’s clear that Helen has no talent (she’s drunk it all away, if she had any to begin with) and her finest moment is simply a fantasy in order to cope with the horror of her own world. Francis is there, too, but he cannot save her — he can’t even save himself. And while it’s tricky to recommend such a bummer of a film, especially alongside something much more lighter and witty, Ironweed offers a performance masterclass from its two stars (who earned Oscar nominations for the film). Ironweed serves as a surprising compliment to Heartburn thanks to Nicholson and Streep, as these two films — released a year apart — show two artists at the height of their powers.

Tyler Coates is a writer who lives in Los Angeles.

Where to stream Heartburn

Where to stream Ironweed