Review of Husbands and Wives (1992) by Richard D — 02 Feb 2018

Allen examines the compromises that come with marriage in this very black comedy. Judy Davis and Sydney Pollack play a married couple who decide to separate after decades of marriage just to try being single.

Pollack immediately hooks up with a much younger aerobics instructor who allows him to feel younger and much more relaxed than Davis. Davis is outraged by this, and hooks up with kindly, old fashioned Liam Neeson, who is a co-worker of her close friend Mia Farrow.

Farrow and Allen are a couple who are close friends with Davis and Pollock, and the separation leads them to question the foundations of their own marriage. Allen starts being drawn to Juliette Lewis, a young student in one of his writing classes.

Farrow in turns starts to realize that she is strongly attracted to Neeson. Judy Davis strides through this film like a colossus dominating every scene she is in. She is incredible. When this was first released, it's experimental style (it's shot like a fake documentary) and connection to Allen and Farrow's real life separation kind of dominated it's reception.

This many year's later, it looks like one of the strongest films Allen produced in the 90's.