Well, this turned out to be a disappointment! I thought I would like it at first: the H and h unexpectedly meeting again after three years, all the repressed feelings coming to the surface, the love/hate stuff, and a Hollywood background, with her being an actress and him a director, and them meeting again at the house party of the studio head and his wife, surrounded by the who's who of the silver screen, and with the OM (the h's agent/fiancé) there with her, and the H with the OW (his current girlfriend), who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of the OM!! She's supposed to star in his new picture, but can they work together with all this mess???
Well, you never find out because the author decides to screw up the story by making it too convoluted! Too much time is wasted with the silly antics of the OM/OW, arguing, insulting each other, throwing things, and acting like hormonal teenagers rather than (supposed) adults! They broke up out of stupidity, each thought the other cheated, and pride/anger kept them apart. And who cares, anyway? The story's not about them, yet they get all these ridiculous scenes, (especially that last hokey one, which the author should have been shot for writing), with time taken away from the H and h, who end up acting ridiculous as well!
Talk about a couple of nincompoops! When they first met, the H knew the h wanted to be a movie star, yet he later acts all butt hurt because she won't give it up to be a housewife/mother. He acts like she wanted the white picket fence from the start, then blindsided him by suddenly opting for a show business career. And she never said she didn't want to marry him and have children, just wanted to wait a few years. She was 25 and figured if she waited until she was about 29 or 30 to have a baby, she'd have those few years first to try and get more from her career than a small part in a local soap opera. Even if she didn't want a career, why the hurry to have a baby, what's wrong with a few years to themselves? But he took the "my way or the highway" route, which is the real reason she left, not career ambitions.
You would think he'd want them to be a team, with him already rich and famous as a director, he could have helped her career immensely, they could have worked together! (Didn't he ever hear of George Burns and Gracie Allen? Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz? Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne? Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy? David Selznick and Jennifer Jones? et. etc. etc.?? Apparently not.)
He was so off base, like accusing her of using him! How? She didn't even know who he was when they met, and she never expected anything from him careerwise. Also, she was 25 and a virgin, so if she were going to play sex games to further her career she would have done it by then! And to tell her that at that age, is she isn't a star she probably never would be was really hitting where it hurts!
It was ridiculous when he fired the housekeeper for the six months they lived together, so she could do the cooking and housework! Why???? Wealthy men NEVER want their women to do domestic chores when they can afford someone to take care of all that. (She made an effort to please him, but her heart wasn't in it, and who can blame her when he made it a requirement?) The story just got more and more silly.
And that whole "casting couch" nonsense was stupid, repetitive and very ANNOYING!!!
As for her: it did get pretty tiresome for her to go on and on and on and on (AND ON) about how much she wanted to be a star, needed to be a star, had to make up for her crappy family life (never explained), had to be a star to escape the earth, and all this melodrama got to be barf-making after a while! Okay, we get it, now please forget it!
He had issues, too: he HAD to be rich and famous to make up for being a nobody, nothing orphan! That'll teach Mom and Dad for croaking on me!
These two had so many issues a few decades of therapy wouldn't have done the trick!
The story has too many starts and stops, with them almost doing the deed, leaving him hard, her wet and both frustrated. He thinks shed been sleeping with the OM ever since she hired him as her agent, when in truth they had never slept together, not even when they got engaged. They were marrying out of friendship and loneliness, and because she still loved the H and he still loved the OW, and yes, they really are that DUMB! Imagine what a fiasco their wedding night would have been! And yes, the engagement goes kaput!
As for the H and the OW: they were just friends too, never slept together, and spend the past few years talking about (and pining for) their lost loves. Not that the H didn't have any action those three years apart, as he dated a lot and had a few affairs, hoping to find the wife/mother he thought the h refused to be, only to discover that none of these women ever understood him the way the h did, that a true soul mate is someone you share with, someone who knows you and accepts the good with the bad, not someone who fills a role you think they should play, especially if it doesn't fit them.
The h gets a revelation too, as she realizes how much she wants to be with the H, marry him, have his children, be a fulfilled woman, she still wants to act, but it's not the priority she used to be. (She should have gotten a clue by the fact that no guy had gotten near her in three years, except for a few unexciting kisses from the OM when they were engaged. Had she really gone Hollywood, she'd have spent half her time naked with half the guys in tinsel town. She kept herself in cold storage for the H, whom she never stopped loving.)
Then there are pages and pages and pages (AND PAGES) of them talking about this, that, and the other thing, as if they're trying to psychoanalyze each other, and doing a BORING job of it! And when they FINALLY hit the sheets, what a letdown that was! Pages and pages (AND PAGES) of mechanical sex moves! The author took too long for the love/sex scene so when it happened it just didn't work.
What the author should have done was have them make the movie together, get more into the idea that the H believes the h is like the character in the movie (a femme fatale type, who'll do anything to be a star, including use her body when necessary), have a lot of tension, as well as revelations when he sees how good an actress she is, and work their story into the movie one.
Instead, she turned it into a mediocre mess.
"Blue Fire" was a pretty weak flame!