Review: Husbands and Wives

Long-time married couple Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis (who was Oscar-nominated here) announce that they are splitting, which shocks their friends Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Then Woody and Mia start having marital woes of their own, with Woody’s wandering eye fixing on one of his young students (Juliette Lewis) and Mia being pursued by charming Liam Neeson. Lysette Anthony turns up as the object of Pollack’s desire.

 

I’ve enjoyed rather few Woody Allen films (“Annie Hall”, “Deconstructing Harry”, “Alice”, “Broadway Danny Rose”, and “Blue Jasmine” among the good ones), and this 1992 talkfest is certainly not one of them. I say this with the full knowledge that I love the 120 minute screaming match “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, but I don’t understand how anyone could be interested in watching this constant chatter and ugliness. The conversations are endless, there’s no room to follow along with them because no one seems to stop to take a breath.

 

Sydney Pollack is terrific as always, Oscar nominee Judy Davis is fine, and Liam Neeson steals his every scene. However, everything else is completely off-putting. Mia Farrow appears to be doing an irritating Dianne Wiest impersonation for instance, and drove me around the bend. And the conversations aren’t just endless, they’re meaningless. The narrative structure is a total mess, there’s this person conducting interviews that we don’t know a thing about. Or why they’re doing the interviews. Or why people are agreeing to be interviewed. There’s also practically no plot, certainly not a good one. One couple’s breakup causes cracks in another couple’s relationship is what constitutes for ‘plot’, and you’ve seen that kind of thing a million times and done better. Meanwhile, the handheld camerawork is some of the worst I’ve ever witnessed in a major film. It’s so discombobulating and poorly done that it doesn’t allow you o see what you need to see in the frame a lot of the time. Poor Lysette Anthony has scenes where she’s barely allowed to be seen on camera before it quickly looks away from her. Apparently it was done that way deliberately for no apparent reason according to IMDb.

 

As for Woody the actor, he essentially plays himself here seducing his student which even in 1992 was probably a bit…questionable but seen with decades of hindsight is downright uncomfortable to watch even if you don’t believe in Woody’s guilt in the molestation allegations. One could say that of one of his better films “Manhattan” as well to be fair, but here it gets attached more directly to Woody’s real-life issues as his relationship breakup (and subsequent revelations/accusations) happened right before the film’s release. Juliette Lewis’ character having a thing for older men could’ve been somewhat funny in a film that wasn’t made by Woody Allen. But this is a Woody Allen film.

 

Almost plotless, ugly, badly shot, and just awful. Here it is, my new contender for Woody Allen’s worst film, and it’s by quite a considerable margin. I hated this film.

 

Rating: D-

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