My Journey from Hating this Movie to...??? (see updates below)

This is another Criterion release I'm struggling with. My initial reaction was really low, and unfortunately the Criterion disc doesn't include many bonuses, no commentaries, nothing that really offers insight, so that's why I'm asking any fans to tell me what they liked about this movie.

Like my title implies, the formula of this 1983 movie is basically an episode of The Love Boat - get an all star cast of well respected actors, 4 men & 4 women, stick them in a confined space, go through a bunch of talk (most of it being a competition to see whose witty 1-liner gets the last word), and the bang finish comes on the last night when they all pair up and retire to their bedchambers.

First I'll say what I thought was really good. William Hurt. All of his scenes were really powerful and meaningful to the story. If you notice, he's the only character who isn't constantly wisecracking; his character actually has depth and something to say (his fiery monologue/accusation at the end was the high point of the film for me). Actually, wait, Glenn Close's character was also serious and lucid, but she doesn't say much.

Now the bad. The worst is the constant wisecracking I keep mentioning. The story revolves around a man's suicide and how his friends come to grips and try to understand why he did it--a great premise, but every time someone said anything with any deep meaning it would instantly be punctuated by someone's wisecrack. Early in the film Tom Berenger's character actually criticizes this, but rather than anyone listening to him they just continue wisecracking and goofing around.

Another huge complaint... although this comes down to personal taste... is that I wasn't a fan of the overbearing soundtrack. I like classic 60s rock, but these songs were thrown in our faces with those dumb montages (the football montage, the funeral montage, the doing-the-dishes montage) where a 5 minute song plays in its entirety as we get a bunch of random scenes of the actors goofing around. After the 3rd or 4th montage it just became a gimmick, a signal that you can take a bathroom break.

I saved the worst for last. The insemination subplot. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? As if the mystery of a friend's suicide wasn't interesting enough, the writers had to throw in the mystery of which man will be the father to Meg's baby? I think that's when the writers went full tilt Love Boat on us. I notice one of the tmdb reviewers pointed out that this incongruent subplot may have single-handedly ruined the movie.

When I have a negative reaction to a respected movie like this, usually the film's saving grace is that it was cutting edge at the time of its release. Maybe there was something about its production or style that defined a genre. But I think this was all done before, as early as 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and it has also been pointed out the The Big Chill is basically a remake of The Return of the Seacaucus 7 (1980) but with a bigger budget. So what gives?