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Woody Allen's relationship falls apart in Husbands and Wives. Life imitates Art? |
You can’t watch Husbands and Wives and not think
about the real-life relationship between Allen and Farrow. The film was their
last collaboration and released just as their incredibly public separation filled
the newspapers (which it has continued to do ever since). Farrow is cast as a
character that, like Hannah and Her Sisters, feels like a twist on her
own life – only this time darker. Again, the conceiving of children is a major
problem for the Allen-Farrow characters and Farrow’s character is described as considerate
but overbearing, with the addition here that she is passive-aggressive and
manipulative. You can’t help but think, how much was Allen already resenting her?
But, leaving aside the psychology (I think it’s a fair thought
though – Allen’s own films have commented numerous times on how writers
re-write their own lives, and there are more than enough signs Allen does the
same) this is still one of Allen’s most impressive works. Husbands and Wives
explores the complex nature of adult relationships, in particular how familiarity
can breed a dissatisfaction with our own lives. It also looks at how moving on
is never easy and how we are still tied with emotional cords we can’t easily
cut to the very people we might want to leave behind.
So, Jack can jump into his new relationship with the younger
and sexually exciting Sam (Jack smugly sings the virtues of healthy living and watching
silly films). But he is still overcome with jealousy when Sally also starts
dating. Sally says she enjoys the single life – but during a date constantly
retreats into a side room (where she can be easily overheard by her date) to phone
Jack and berate him for moving on so soon after their separation. Allen argues
that, discontented and problematic as Jack and Sally’s marriage may be, it is so
familiar to them that the idea of leaving it is too much.
Essentially, the shared memories and experiences of a
long-term relationship make it too difficult to move on. The separation of
their friends makes Gabe and Judy readdress their own relationship – and the find
its closer to the rocks than they think. With the passion gone, Gabe feels Judy
doesn’t need him while Judy is unhappy with Gabe’s unwillingness to have a child.
Judy doesn’t share her poetry with him and Gabe feels she is overly critical of
his new novel (and is unhappy about the character in it who is clearly her). Inevitably
(it is Allen) sex comes into play – both Gabe and Jack are sexually dissatisfied:
Judy has lost interest and Sally can’t enjoy sex (not even with Liam Neeson).
Gabe, therefore, allows himself to get closer to Juliette
Lewis’ student on the creative writing course he teaches. Again, being Allen,
there is a considerable age difference – but at least that’s addressed in the
film, as every single one of Rain’s exes are older men, all with positions of
authority over her (a family friend, her psychiatrist, her teacher…). Lewis is
rather good as this coquetteish flirt, and Gabe is (at first) much more open to
her criticism of his book than he was from Judy (largely as, consciously or not,
he wants to get in her pants).
The film is shot with a cinema verité fly-on-the-wall
immediacy, echoing documentary. It has the characters pop-up as talking heads
throughout, discussing their perceptions and feelings to an unseen interviewer.
It’s an approach that has mixed results – although an interesting new way for
Allen to use the internal monologue. The documentary approach does, however,
produce some excellent scenes. Most striking, the raw hand-held energy of the
opening scene, where Jack and Sally announce their separation to the rising
horror and shock of Gabe and Judy, surely one of Allen’s finest shot and acted
scenes.
Of course, they are mainly horrified because they see they
have even less in common, really, than Jack and Sally. While Allen throws in
one happy marriage – Rain’s parents seem loving – he also makes it clear their
daughter is maladjusted. Husbands and Wives suffers under Allen’s cynicism
for humanity – there isn’t a lot of hope in here, other than you might find a
more functional type of contented misery. The sympathy also drifts more to the
male characters: Gabe is a sort of innocent, Jack impulsive but his actions justified.
On the other hand, Judy is a manipulator, Sally an shrill, frigid neurotic, Sam
an idiot and Rain a temptress.
The performances are good. Judy Davis is very good (and
Oscar-nominated) as the difficult, emotionally confused Sally. Pollack is fittingly
smug as a man in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Neeson rather touching as an
overly needy editor. Allen and Farrow play familiar parts, but with an
accomplished ease. It’s just that Husbands and Wives is a rather glum
watch – for all the jokes. It takes a depressing, rather archly cynical look at
a world that doesn’t have a lot of promise in it. While it might well be
truthful, the documentary approach of the film sometimes brings it closer to the
Allen/Farrow home than you might find comfortable.
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