Husbands and Wives

When I saw Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York a few weeks ago, I mentioned that it had unmistakable similarities to the films of Woody Allen, particularly Husbands and Wives. It so happens that I didn't own a copy of it, and hadn't seen in it in a long while, so I picked one up and watched it again. Though it has certain tropes that are very familiar to Allen, especially after his scandals, I consider it his last truly great film.

It was released in 1992, just after the reveal of the Mia Farrow-Soon-yi Previn stuff that dominated the newspapers (I was working in New York at the time, and I believe the story was on the front page of the Daily News for eight straight days). Suddenly Allen was a polarizing figure, and this only deepened after the accusation that he molested another of Farrow's adopted children, a prepubescent girl.

Therefore the film had some unintentional buzz when it was released. And it had, as Allen's films have unfortunately continued to do, a May-December romance. Allen seems to be completely tone-deaf today about pairing actors in romances who with men who are old enough to be the fathers of their co-stars (he did it last year in Magic in the Moonlight), but in Husbands and Wives it was still a relatively fresh thing, except considering that everybody knew Allen was having an affair with a barely legal girl who was his girlfriend's adopted daughter.

Anyway, Husbands and Wives, despite all that, holds up very well. It's the story of two couples, Allen and Farrow (who were making this film while she was discovering his deception) and Sidney Pollack and Judy Davis. The latter two arrive at the former's place before dinner to announce that they are splitting up--Farrow takes his very hard. We also are introduced to two techniques that garnered some discussion--the camera is moving, as if we were a participant (the DP was Carlo DiPalma) and the characters, as in Sidewalks of New York, are interviewed as if they were part of a documentary. The characters are not limited to the main four--we also get minor characters, such as the hooker Pollack visits and Farrow's first husband, played by Yale president Benno Schmidt.

Pollack and Davis find new romances. He takes up with an aerobics instructor far his junior (Lysette Anthony) and she has a half-hearted fling with Liam Neeson, Farrow having set them up. Of course Farrow is the one who is in love with Neeson, even as she and Allen have what seems to be a fine marriage. But then he becomes besotted with one of his college students (Juliette Lewis).

Husbands and Wives is funny and has some very sharp dialogue. There's a great scene in which the tightly wound Davis (she specializes in tightly wound) goes to meet a guy for a date, but can't help but call Pollack, whom she discovers is now living with Anthony. Then, Pollack shows up, drunk, at Davis' house while Neeson is staying over. There's also a great scene in the back of a cab when Lewis, who admires Allen as a writer, starts to tell him what she thinks is wrong with his novel in progress. Allen gets petulant, but the camera stays on Lewis, not getting upset. It's a great performance by Lewis, even if she is a kind of male fantasy. Not the manic pixie dream girl, but instead the Ivy League hottie, who has left a trail of older men as ex-lovers.

The climax of the film is when Allen attends Lewis' 21st birthday party and they have a moment in the kitchen alone. She wants a kiss, and against his better judgement he kisses her, and what would have been a very romantic moment is made repugnant by Allen's personal life. But it's still a great scene, as he tells her that "50,000 dollars of psychotherapy is dialing 9-1-1." After the kiss he decides not to pursue a relationship, and of all the characters in the film he remains alone.

Husbands and Wives looks great, shot in autumnal colors and cozy apartments. It being Allen, there are some familiar things, such as the names Dostoevsky and Joyce being dropped in the first minute of dialogue. Dostoevsky comes up again, when he tells Lewis that Tolstoy is a meal, while Turgenev is a dessert. "And Dostoevsky?" she asks. "He's a complete meal, with a vitamin and some extra wheat germ," he replies. The film is also peppered with Allen's use of comic Jewish names, like Pepkin and Rifkin and Feldman, which he still does in New Yorker pieces. Perhaps most unforgivably is his treatment of Anthony's character. Allen, when seeing her for the first time, tells Pollack that he's nuts for dating her, because "she's a cocktail waitress." Not that she's too young, but she's not intellectual enough. Later, he will humiliate the character because she believes in astrology.

Despite these misgivings, Husbands and Wives is one of Allen's best films, certainly in his top five. And now I have a copy, hurray!