Chilly Scenes of Winter is a kind of deconstructed screwball romantic comedy, meaning that it turns on the often comic efforts of a couple to overcome the dysfunction in their relationship. But the romance is soured and the comedy is darkened by circumstances they can't control, as well as their own egos. Initially released under the title Head Over Heels, it had a "happy ending" that felt unearned and it failed at the box office. Then writer-director Joan Micklin Silver revised the film a few years later, with a freeze-frame ending that left the protagonist in a kind of emotional limbo, and under the title of the Ann Beattie novel it was based on, it was better received. It's still full of cringe moments and skewed relationships, but in its own itchy way it makes dramatic sense.
