The Thing Called Love is a 1993 American comedy-drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Samantha Mathis as Miranda Presley, a young musician who tries to make it big in Nashville.

While the film involves a love triangle and various complications in Miranda's route to success, it provides a sweetened glimpse at the lives of aspiring songwriters in Nashville.

"[2] A "making of" documentary is available on the film's DVD release, titled The Thing Called Love: A Look Back.

[3] Miranda Presley is an aspiring singer/songwriter from New York City who loves country music and decides to take her chances in Nashville, Tennessee, where she hopes to become a star.

Arriving after a long bus ride, Miranda makes her way to the Bluebird Café, a local bar with a reputation as a showcase for new talent.

Although she arrives too late to audition for that week's roster, the bar's owner Lucy likes the plucky newcomer and gives her a job as a waitress.

By the café's second week of auditions, Miranda has become familiar with some other Nashville transplants who are looking to land a gig or sell a song.

This includes sweet and open-hearted Kyle Davidson of Connecticut, moody but talented James Wright from Texas, and spunky Linda Lue Linden of Alabama.

Miranda returns and sings a new song which finally earns her a spot performing in the Bluebird, before tentatively reuniting with James.

Kyle joins them as Linda Lue leaves for New York to try acting, and the remaining three discuss writing a song together.

The film was to have been directed by Brian Gibson but in September 1992 he left the project to make What's Love Got to Do with It and was replaced by Peter Bogdanovich.

Bogdanovich admitted[7] the film had some similarities to Fame and Flashdance movies that became "kind of a genre of its own... We tried to play by the rules of that.

The website's consensus reads: "The last film River Phoenix completed before his death, The Thing Called Love doesn't have much new to say about show business, but it's energetic and well-acted.

"[11] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 1 out of 4 and wrote: "Perhaps no one could have saved Phoenix, who was not lucky enough to find a higher bottom than death.

The last thing you're left with is that he is dead, even though the character is alive ... (The movie) was supposed to be bittersweet, but it turned out being more bitter than sweet.