10 Worst Onscreen Romantic Pairings of All Time

It is going to become painfully obvious that I have spent waaay too much time in a darkened theater as I share with you some horrible screen pairings it has been my misfortune to suffer through, first as an avid filmgoer since birth and second, as a film critic for 15 years. These are in no particular order, and the reasons I feel these were horrible pairings are subjective.

In no particular order, the films are:

1) "The Human Stain" - Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman

2) "Eyes Wide Shut" - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman

3) "Dracula" - Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder

4) "Harold and Maude" - Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort

5) "The Way We Were" - Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand

6) "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" - Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles

7) "6 Days, 7 Nights" - Harrison Ford and Anne Heche

8) "Fair Game" - Billy Baldwin and Cindy Crawford

9) "A Star Is Born" - Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson

10) "At Long Last Love" - Cybill Shpeherd and Burt Reynolds

Let me explain.

There are some great actors/actresses on this list who, nevertheless, had absolutely no onscreen chemistry with their leading man or leading lady. Sometimes, I fear, it is because that actor (or actress) is simply better suited to character actor parts. Other times, it is quite surprising, because the individuals in question were actually "an item," as was the case with Nicole Kidman/Tom Cruise.

Nicole Kidman: I have listed her starring role in Stanley Kubrick's last complete film, "Eyes Wide Shut," where she starred opposite her then-real-life husband Tom Cruise as Alice Hartford (1999). I have also listed her opposite the much-too-old-for-her Anthony Hopkins in her onscreen role as the semi-literate Faunia Farley, opposite Anthony Hopkins' Coleman Silk in "The Human Stain," a 2003 Robert Benton-directed film (script by Nick Meyer, an old college classmate) based on a 2000 Philip Roth novel. Casting Anthony Hopkins as a (secretly) black man and Nicole Kidman as a cleaning woman (semi-literate, as well) was just the beginning of the problems for this film that garnered "rotten tomato" awards. It was as thoroughly miscast as it is possible to be, and the premises upon which the film rested were also dated. (Coleman is railroaded from his job as a university professor for asking, about some MIA African-American students, in his class, if they are "spooks," meaning ghosts.) The idea that Welshman Hopkins is secretly black was hard to swallow. (The younger version of Hopkins was well-played by "Prison Break's" Wentworth Miller, but even that did not help.) Nicole as a cleaning woman? No way. Only Ed Harris brought some believability to his role (along with the aforementioned young Hopkins, as portrayed by Wentworth Miller.)

But Nicole was also bad opposite Tom Cruise as Shannon Christie in the 1992 epic "Far and Away" and even before that, in "Days of Thunder" in 1990, the film where they met and fell in love. Let's face it. While Nicole Kidman (and certainly Anthony Hopkins) are great actors, everyone has their limits. When you're miscast, you're miscast. Since three of these films involve Kidman opposite Tom Cruise, it would seem that they were a mismatch in more ways than one. No onscreen chemistry. Zip. Zero. Nada. And they divorced not long after.

Gary Oldman: Second-highest scorer on the "no charisma as sexy lead player in a romance" goes to Gary Oldman, who is a very competent character actor but lacks in the romance department. Following Frank Langella's mesmerizing role as "Dracula," Oldman was very disappointing opposite Winona Ryder in that Francis Ford Coppola film. He wasn't much better in "The Scarlet Letter" (1995) opposite Demi Moore as the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, nor in the film "Romeo Is Bleeding" (1993) as Jack, opposite the sexy Lena Olin. Where Oldman shines is in work such as his spot-on impersonation of Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's 1991 film "JFK." As a romantic leading man? Not so much.

Barbra Streisand makes the list twice (and could be mentioned for others), once opposite Kris Kristofferson in "A Star Is Born" and once opposite Robert Redford in "The Way We Were." I blame the lack of "sparks" more on Kristofferson in the first film, a role that was originally offered to (but turned down by) Elvis Presley. Kristofferson has all the charismatic acting ability of a board. He reminds me of an old version of Keanu Reeves. This is also by way of explaining why "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" floundered and sank. More Kristofferson; less Sarah Miles. In "The Way We Were" Streisand/Redford proved that the ugly duckling does not always grow up to be the beautiful swan, and that the saying, "opposites attract" can only carry you so far. It only carried this movie so far, despite Marvin Hamlisch's best musical efforts.

"Harold and Maude" is a cult classic, and I loved the flick, but the plot is about a romance between a 20-year-old youth obsessed with death and suicide (Bud Cort) and a 79-year-old woman, played by the indomitable Ruth Gordon. I'm all for cougars, but there are limits.

"6 Days, 7 Nights" was a plot that paired Harrison Ford with Anne Heche, who, at the time, was an 'out" lesbian. There were absolutely no sparks of any kind between the leads and do we wonder why? We could also mention the 1995 remake of "Sabrina," where Ford took on the role of Linus Larabee, a part that originally paired Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn and William Holden in a love triangle. Here, the combination of Ford, "Talk Soup's" most illustrious graduate Greg Kinnear and the lovely Julia Ormond did not gel...although the soundtrack from the movie is awesome.

"Fair Game" had William Baldwin (the thin Baldwin) cast as Detective Max Kirkpatrick and model Cindy Crawford of DeKalb, Illinois trying to segue suc.essfully to the big screen from her lucrative modeling career, playing Kate McQuean. It's no accident that Cindy has not gone on to become the next Charlize Theron or Jessica Lange. The film is horrible, and Crawford was awful in it. It was directed by Andrew Sipes; perhaps we can blame him, but I doubt it.

Last, and perhaps least, Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd somehow got the idea that they could sing and carry a musical in the much-maligned "At Long Last Love." The less said about that film, the better.

I've gone quite far back in film annals to share my Worst 10 Onscreen Pairings with you. Next time, I'm going for the "hottest" onscreen couples.