Husbands and Wives
Composite Score: 84.4
Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, Judy Davis, Jeffrey Kurland, Juliette Lewis, Lysette Anthony, and Liam Neeson
Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
MPAA Rating: R for language and a scene of sexuality
Box Office: $10.56 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Husbands and Wives is Woody Allen’s film about a pair of middle-aged couples in New York City who suddenly experience marital crises when one couple decides to separate for a period. The film stars Allen across from Mia Farrow and Sydney Pollack across from Judy Davis in the central roles of Gabe and Judy and Jack and Sally, respectively. They are joined by Juliette Lewis, Lysette Anthony, and Liam Neeson to round out the film’s ensemble of New Yorkers seeking love. The film received two Oscar nominations – one for Allen’s original script and the other for Judy Davis’s supporting performance. While this film is a triumph of originality, realism, and dramedy, it’s hard to fully recommend it when taking into account its context and content.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Husbands and Wives is the prime example of a film where you cannot separate the art from the artist. Its release right at the time of Woody Allen’s divorce from Mia Farrow and their controversial custody trial where Allen was accused of pedophilia (and his new relationship with Farrow’s 21-year-old adoptive daughter) feels a bit too on-the-nose considering the film’s content. Allen plays Gabe Roth, a writing professor whose wife Judy (played by Farrow) is a bit too flighty for him, driving him to fantasize about one of his writing students and eventually pursue a romantic fling with her. While the other storyline following Jack and Sally’s relationship spiral feels more like the comedic heart and soul of the film, it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Allen’s own life and the storyline that he wrote for his own character. Considering everything going on at the time and the controversy surrounding Allen’s divorce, it feels wrong to really encourage people to watch this film, even if you ignore the accusations of child sexual assault, which aren’t ever really addressed in the film. It feels like Allen trying to justify his own controversial life choices through a film that also happens to paint his ex-wife as the bad guy. The whole thing just stinks, and watching this film made me feel the ick really bad.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
As I said, decontextualizing Husbands and Wives is not something that any self-respecting audience should do, but I do want to praise the work of the people who weren’t Woody Allen in this film, particularly Judy Davis’s Oscar-nominated performance as Sally. While all the performers do an adequate job of playing in the realist dramedy space, none do it quite so well as Davis. Her take on the repressed housewife turned empty-nester turned single woman of a certain age should be the blueprint for every other character in that archetype. It’s fun and deep and emotionally engaging without ever spilling into the melodramatic or stereotypical or troubling, and that’s all thanks to her own performance. From the jump, you get an idea of who her character is, and she lives in that role unapologetically – getting the audience to root for her despite every urge telling you how much you would hate to spend time with that character in real life. It’s a brilliant performance that tragically sits as the high point of a truly problematic film. If this role appears in something that isn’t Woody Allen’s defense of his problematic love life, it’s a top-25 supporting performance of all time. As it is, maybe look up the highlights on YouTube or something.
Judy Davis’s strong turn as the wildly entertaining Sally only does so much to distract the audience from Woody Allen’s well-written defense of his own troubling life choices, which make this film great, but probably shouldn’t earn it a spot on anyone’s must-watch list. For real, please don’t watch this film if you can avoid it. Read its Wikipedia page and then read the page about Allen’s divorce from Mia Farrow, and you’ll get everything I’ve been trying to say here. With film, I’m often an advocate of trying to separate the art from the artist, but in this case, the artist has refused to separate himself from the art, and so I have to suggest that you skip this one.
