REVIEWS
Though not as successful as What's Up, Doc? or The Way We Were, Up the Sandbox springs from the early 1970s, when Barbra Streisand's career was in full stride. Streisand stars as Margaret, a stay-at-home mom in the middle of New York who's feeling the strain of her narrow life. Frustrated by her self-involved husband and the emotionally rewarding but mentally unstimulating tasks of motherhood, she escapes into fantasies--such as being hit on by a cross-gendered Fidel Castro, bombing the Statue of Liberty with black militants, and having a furious catfight with her overbearing mother. The movie's strength lies in these fantasies' slippery nature; some are over the top, but others are so subtle you're not always sure where they start and stop, making the portrait of Margaret's psyche intriguingly complex. Streisand fans should check out this sleeper.