HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Woody Allen Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Judy Davis, Sydney Pollack, Juliette Lewis, Liam Neeson
Woody Allen usually mixes a lot of broad humor in his handling of serious topics. Even "Crimes and Misdemeanors" had the usual typical Woody Allen one-liner that he's so famous for. But "Husbands and Wives" is straigh-forward bitter. I mean, it was filmed around the time the whole Soon-Yi thing came out. Yet, even while it's not a typical Woody Allen drama, what he has created here is a kind of black, black, black comedy. I mean, this is almost as comically black as "Dr. Strangelove."
"Husbands and Wives" is an ironic tale, told in a pseudo-documentary feel (with headache-enducing hand camera for realistic shots - but it's justified in the name of art), centering around two couples: Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, and Sydney Pollack (the director) and Judy Davis. The two are best friends and go everywhere together. The one particular night, when Pollack and Davis come to Allen and Farrow's house, they announce they're splitting up. Not divorcing, but splitting. Both Allen and Farrow are in total shock, but Farrow takes it especially hard.
While Davis and Pollack have actually split and are carrying on with their lives, they're both kind of jealous of the other. In a brilliantly executed scene, Davis goes to the house of a man she has a date with, and constantly is leaving to use his phone to call Pollack who has already met someone and is moving her in and bitch him out as only Judy Davis can do. Meanwhile, Pollack is dating an aerobics instructor half his age (because she makes him feel young again - duh), and Davis settles down a bit, and begins sort of dating a man Farrow works with - Liam Neeson, who likes Davis a lot, but she's too testy and argumentative to let him really near her.
On the other side, Allen and Farrow are slowly drifting apart. Allen, who teaches English at a local college, begins to hang around with one of his more intelligent students (Juliette Lewis, in a bit of bold casting, seeing how many times she's done the ditz role), who has had relationships with older men before (many many older men, as she hilariously tells Allen). She's very cerebral and free-spirited, which turns Allen on, because Farrow's so tight. And then there's Farrow who begins wishing she didn't let Davis have Neeson.
The film ends on a kind of depressing, half up/half down note, but armed with a lot of cynicism towards the prospect of marriage, and also on a quite ironic note. It's satisfying, realistic, yet still a big downer. It basically elongates the little aphorism Woody used in his masterpiece, "Annie Hall:" love fades. The people in this film are in a "blessed union" where, if drawn out, the two people joined are stuck together until whomever dies first. And thanks to the contemporary prospects such as "trial seperation" and the ever-popular "divorce," people don't have to waste their lives with someone who they don't love anymore. Allen and Farrow's characters don't love eachother anymore, it's more like a comfortable fit. But the four characters in this film all get to go around and try on some other people, and compare. The result is pretty much depressing, yet totally realistic.
As far as the Allen/Lewis thing as well as the Pollack/aerobics teacher thing, they are both handled with the utmost sense of maturity. This is really one of his most mature films. Bitter, yet grown-up. Anyway, the Allen/Lewis thing only results in one single kiss, while the Pollack/aerobics teacher thing results in refreshment at first, then a big disaster. "Husbands and Wives" explores the whole threat of mid-life crisis, as well as if a marriage is worth wading out for "death do us part."
The script by Woody Allen is fantastic, featuring only a couple great typical one-liners that are the writer/director's trademark. He intertwines the stories in the great use of the pseudo-documentary, which is handled more like a personal documentary instead of one like "Zelig." And he creates well-defined characters who have a lot of great dialogue to speak. And although the handheld bit gets annoying, it works for the film, showing that there's always some way to better a technique that doesn't really work most of the time. And Woody nicely balances all four characters' stories, evening it all out.
And the acting is amazing. We not only get gripping performances from Woody Allen, Mia Farrow (who you have to respect for the sole reason that she did the film even after discovering those nasty photos), and Sydney Pollack, but we also get a fantastic peformance from Juliette Lewis, a wonderful, almost cameo-bit of acting by Liam Neeson, and an Oscar-worthy performance by Judy Davis (who was nominated for an Oscar for it). None of them are truly scene-stealers (except Davis when she's with someone I didn't mention), and it works because they all seem human and all mesh well together. This is not only one of the best directed and scripted films, but also one of the best acted.
This is one of Woody's best films, but it's also extremely bitter. It doesn't overcome the meaning though, which is attributed to Woody's tight direction and writing. And, yes, I laughed a lot in the film, mainly due to some of the pure human-ness of it all. But anyway, this is just one amazing film, and I highly, highly reccomend it.
MY RATING (out of 4): ****
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
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