Just Tell Me What You Want

Just Tell Me What You Want is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Lumet. It stars Ali MacGraw, Peter Weller and Alan King, and was also the final film of screen legend Myrna Loy. The screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from her novel, won her the David di Donatello Award for Best Screenplay of a Foreign Film. Max Herschel, the married, wealthy, vulgar, egotistical, middle-aged head of a corporate empire, is satisfied with the somewhat casual love/hate relationship he shares with his mistress and protegee, television producer Bones Burton, just as it is, but she wants a more... serious commitment. The young woman attempts to extricate herself from the affair -- or perhaps force her lover into taking the next, more permanent step -- by dating an even younger man, off-off-Broadway playwright Steven Routledge. Max, however, is not a man to accept defeat in any of his endeavors, and he retaliates with a vengeance. The two engage in an escalating battle of wits, with Max discovering money can't resolve everything when he is outsmarted by business rival Seymour Berger and his grandson Mike.
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