|
| .. |
|
|
HUSBANDS AND WIVES
Review by Michael Jacobson
Stars:
Woody Allen, Blythe Danner, Judy Davis, Mia Farrow, Juliette Lewis, Liam
Neeson, Sydney Pollack
Director: Woody Allen
Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen
1.85:1, Full Frame 1.33:1
Studio: Columbia Tri Star
Features: Two Trailers
Length: 108 Minutes
Release Date: April 16, 2002
“You
use sex to express every emotion except love.”
Are
marital ills contagious? Woody
Allen's Husbands and Wives would seem to argue so.
Two couples are also paired best friends. At the beginning of the film, one shocks the other with their
announcement of splitting up. And
their decision begins to bring out the insecurity, unhappiness, and ill ease in
the other seemingly happy marriage. Ironically,
by the end of the picture, the splitting couple is back together, while the
staying-together couple are split.
Relationships
are fragile creatures, and Allen as screenwriter and director has rarely been so
insightful. There are enough fears
and neuroses to make any marriage undertaking a difficult one…do we really
need analysts also telling us things like sexual attraction usually disappears
within the first four years? Sheesh.
The
four characters comprising the two married couples are well cast.
Jack and Sally (Pollock and Academy Award nominee Davis) are couple
number one, who have just lowered the boom on their best friends Gabe and Judy
(Allen and Farrow). Jack and Sally
are calm and civil about their decision; it was made without anger or animosity,
merely logic. Judy, in fact, seems
to take the news much harder than they do.
Both
couples proceed forth from that singular event. Jack begins to see his aerobics instructor, a young woman
with a fantastic figure and a lightweight I.Q.
Judy fixes up Sally with her editor Michael (Neeson).
Watching both figures in action is funny, touching, and highly revealing.
Both pretend to be happy, but Jack clearly misses having his mind
stimulated more than his libido…and Sally is so forcefully opinionated and
contradictory, we feel for the lovestruck Michael when he talks about how
wonderful she is!
In
the meantime, their breakup has had an impact on Gabe and Judy, who seemed to be
happy. Judy finds herself
questioning everything she once believed in.
Gabe seems more passive. “Are
you happy with our marriage?” she asks him.
“I don't think about it,” he replies.
“Isn't that a good thing?”
Each
is tempted with infidelity. Judy
secretly has a crush on Michael, despite fixing him up with Sally.
Gabe is fascinated by one of his students, Rain (Lewis), who shows great
promise as a writer. Neither act upon their impulses, but something else happens
that throws their perceptions out of whack…Jack and Sally reunite.
Allen's
film plays out like a documentary. His
cameraman, Carlo Di Palma, shot the movie with hand held cameras and often in
long takes that has the camera scrambling to find its focal point.
Characters are often interviewed by an off-camera director and asked
direct questions about how they feel, what they think, and what they intend to
do. There is even a bit of
narration to move the story forward. Allen used the faux documentary approach once before in the
delightfully comic Zelig, but here, he uses it as a tool to emphasize his
search for truth in the tumultuous world of relationships.
“So
much time is wasted and so much is devoted to the prettiness of films,” Allen
said with regards to the style of Husbands and Wives.
“And I said to myself, why not just start to make some films where
only the content is important?”
One
of the best examples is the opening shot, which is long and unbroken, and seems
to be drama in three dimensions. There
is no place the actors can't go; they use the entire interior space as a
stage. But with the way the camera
is free to follow them and change directions and points of view, we get a much
closer and different look than we might have theatrically. In some ways, it's very voyeuristic, given the nature of
what the characters are going through.
Perhaps
adding even more to the voyeuristic quality is the famed trouble between Allen
and Farrow in real life, which coincided with the movie.
In the film, Allen is attracted to a twenty year old girl, but for his
character, common sense prevails and it comes to nothing.
I guess it goes back to what he wrote in Annie Hall about life not
imitating art, but how in art we try to get things to come out right
because they seldom do in real life.
So
at the end of the movie, Gabe isn't happy…but who is? Jack and Sally reuniting comes across more as a failure than
a triumph. Judy gets what she
wants, but in her final interview sequence paired with Michael, we wonder how
long it will take before Michael realizes what he says about being the pursuer
is completely false?
Husbands
and Wives might
be the kind of film that dramatically merits a sequel…if only it wouldn't
seem so cruel to follow these people any further than we already have.
Video
***
Given
the more primitive nature of lighting and photography Allen strived for in this
film, Husbands is not a visual banquet, but still a good looking disc in
the hands of Columbia Tri Star. The
anamorphic widescreen transfer (full frame included also) is clean and clear
throughout, with colors and tones that look natural in their completely
inartistic way (aiding to the documentary feel). Detail level is quite good, and images render with integrity
both in regular room lighting and in one sequence where candles are used.
All in all, a quality effort.
Audio
**1/2
All
Woody Allen movies are recorded in mono, as they tend to be dialogue oriented.
Husbands and Wives is no exception.
The dialogue is clean and clearly rendered throughout, and merits an
extra ½ star for a bit of dynamic range brought about by sequences of intense
argument.
Features
*
The
disc includes trailers for this film and Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Summary: