Review of An Unmarried Woman (1978) by Bob W — 22 Mar 2008

Jill Clayburgh was named (by Entertainment Weekly in 1999) one of the 25 greatest actresses in Hollywood. Speaking on a strictly personal level, I agree wit that assessment, entirely.

Clayburgh was a star of great enormity in the 70s and 80s, and while she had done some movies before AN UNMARRIED WOMAN, this was the film that put her on the map. It is the role with which she is most identified and the role for which she will always be remembered, even though she has continued to work and turn in top notch performances, earning her more than one Oscar nomination (the first being, of course, for AN UNMARRIED WOMAN).

The success of this film rests, almost squarely, on Clayburgh's shoulders - but not quite. You see the film was written and directed, to perfection, by Paul Mazursky - and that fact stuns me, let me tell you. It isn't that I don't find Mazursky talented - I'm just amazed that a man was able to create this extraordinary piece of artwork about things that are happening in the heart, the mind and the life of a woman. I'm not sure how he understood Erica so well, but I'm glad he did because the film is so in tune with the character for whom the audience must feel the most, in order for it all to work.

I think some people will find that the film plods along at times but I think that is necessary to the understanding of what this woman is going through. I think it is meant to show us the huge blank spaces in her days, in her life, when the film gets so quiet. It's a great juxstaposition from the exciting party scenes and the famous dancing ballet around the house in her underwear scene. We are actually able to feel some of the emptiness, the loneliness, the desperation.

Clayburgh is not the only person to turn in stellar work here, either - it's the entire cast, starting with the late and supremely gifted Alan Bates and winding down to The Gilmore Girls Kelly Bishop in a lovely part as one of Erica's friends; or Cliff Gorman as a sleazy artist caught up in the sexual revolution; and Michael Murphy as the humanly flawed husband who leaves his wife of nearly two decades for a younger woman.

Observe the honesty of the scene in which Clayburgh and Gorman sit, uncomfortably and unattractively, in their underwear while trying to get a splinter out of her foot. Observe the OH SO REAL expression on her face when her husband tells her about his affair -- it's almost a minute of her staring at him in disgust, not even blinking, and her verbal response is just right on - it is what a wife and mother would say.

Some may say that it is dated but I think that is one of the most important things about this movie. We need films like this to tell us what it was like in the middle of the sexual revolution, during the first years of feminism; before people were so cautious about sex, due to stds, before the internet made getting to meet and know people into something akin to ordering a pizza. We need to be shown the past so that we understand - and the seventies in New York is a fantastic time to be shown, in such detailed depth (and with Bill Conti's phenomenal underscoring, no less!). I don't think Mazursky did any studio shooting - it is all location, so we get to see the gritty and dirty New York of that era, from the streets to the artists' lofts to the expensive apartments of the East side to the offices of granola head therapists and all the glorious Manhattan scenery that is still around, today, only a little cleaner, a little more pasteurized.

With all of these exceptional qualities in this film, though, it all boils down to that foundation... no, not the foundation of a great script and great director (which is has!) -- the foundation of a great actress.

Miss Jill Clayburgh. The Unmarried Woman (who, in real life, has been married to playwright David Rabe for nearly 30 years).

By the way, the commentary on the dvd is wonderful.