Written & Directed by: Woody Allen
Cast: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Judy Davis, & Sydney Pollack
Runtime: 108 min
Rating: R
Trailer

A question is asked halfway through Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives that encapsulates the theme and highlights the fundamental problem presenting the characters. Judy Roth, played by Mia Farrow, asks her husband Gabe (Woody Allen), whether or not he would still marry her knowing everything he knows after being married to her for several years. Gabe dismisses Judy’s question by suggesting that she’s in a “peculiar mood” and thereby indirectly hinting that the marriage is indeed floundering. Woody Allen’s career up until Husbands and Wives, released in the early 90’s, was usually comprised of ripping off Bergman and Dostoevsky with varying degrees of success, most notably with Shadows and Fog and Crimes and Misdemeanors, or relying on his slapstick comedies in Love and Death and Sleeper. It wasn’t until Husbands and Wives that Allen abandoned his stylized presentation and relied solely on a realistic portrayal of relationships and characters. Out of all of his most recent films, especially the ones made in the last 15 years, it is this film that appears as the anomaly – the one film that isn’t derivative of his earlier style. Set in Manhattan (like there was any doubt), Husbands and Wives begins with Judy and Gabe’s close friends, Sally and Jack, revealing that they’ve decided to end their marriage and see other people as a means of personal growth. Judy takes the news badly, distraught over the idea of a seemingly healthy marriage disintegrating on a whim. As the events progress, it is Judy and Gabe’s relationship that begins to falter, having had the idea of divorce planted in their heads. Gabe’s attraction for his student, Rain (Juliette Lewis) intensifies, while Judy wrestles with her own desire for someone new, namely her colleague at work, played by Liam Neeson. Sure, the plot isn’t spectacular and isn’t particularly new for a Woody Allen film, but it’s the insight Allen provides into the concept of marriage that allows his film to rise above the standard set with his prior efforts. Shot in a documentary-style aesthetic by cinematographer Carlo Di Palma that relies on hand-held camera work and mock talking-head interviews with an unseen narrator, Allen allows the audience to call up their voyeuristic desires while bringing a heightened sense of realism. The acting is also first rate, with the notable standout being Judy Davis’ performance as a overly critical woman wrestling with the notion that she’s a woman destined to be married, even when she welcomes being single as a chance to explore new territory. Even when Husbands and Wives sounds like a standard Woody Allen film, with it’s neurotic characters and witty dialogue, it’s the sheer maturity in the way Allen handles the subject matter that ultimately showcases his genius as a writer and director.

Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006