Review of Husbands and Wives (1992) by Conor M — 08 Apr 2010

In some ways, Husbands and Wives is a typical Woody Allen film. It's populated by upscale New Yorkers, features themes of sexual inadequacy and sticky views on the nature of love and marriage, and features a starring role from Allen as a neurotic Jewish New Yorker with a whole host of issues.

However, it's different from a typical Woody Allen film in that it's surprisingly raw, voyeuristic, and at times difficult to watch. Part of this is achieved through the mockumentary style Allen employs.

While this style is not new to him, he's never done it in quite the same way. He uses shaky cam, candid confessionals, and often cuts in the middle of a line of dialogue. It adds a level of verisimilitude to the story that makes it all the more effective.

Allen plays Gabe, a professor who is married to Judy (Mia Farrow). At the beginning of the movie, their friends Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis), another married couple, announce they're splitting up.

As both Jack and Sally try to navigate the tricky world of post-married life, Gabe and Judy begin to find problems long buried in their own marriage. Eventually Gabe takes a liking to one of his students (Juliette Lewis) and Judy has feelings for a coworker (Liam Neeson).

The movie contains Allen's usual pessimistic views on marriage and love, but it also contains some of his most interesting and complex characters. It's hard to really side with any of the four leads, as they often do selfish, embarrassing things.

They're all very flawed, and therefore very real, people. Even Allen's usual neurotic character is sometimes hard to like here, whereas in other movies, this same persona is easy to root for, despite his long list of problems.

The acting is uniformly good, particularly from Pollack and Davis, who give very raw performances. The movie is especially interesting when looked at alongside Allen's long and very public custody battle with Farrow for their adopted kids, and his relationship to Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

You can't help but draw comparisons between the two, even though this was made before that happened. It's one of Allen's darkest, rawest films, and maybe the last great Woody Allen movie that feels like a Woody Allen movie.