B+


Husbands and Wives is one of the few serious Woody Allen movies that I have seen so far. Actiually, the only others are Match Point and Sweet and Lowdown (well, maybe The Purple Rose of Cairo to an extent) and I must say that it's another success for Allen. Frankly, I have yet to see a single Allen movie to completely blow me away, but at the same time I've also yet to see a bad or even mediocre Allen film. Even his worst so far, Small Time Crooks, is still quite decent. Once again, I should stress how wonderful Allen's screenwriting is. I think I have yet to find a single screenwriter in Hollywood who's better than him. Husbands and Wives is another well-deserved Best Original Screenplay nominee written by Allen.

As in almost all of Allen's films, it's the screenplay that defines it and Husbands and Wives' screenplay is probably among the three best I have witnessed in Allen's films so far (the other two being The Purple Rose of Cairo and Match Point). It's a great take on relationships, marriage and just life. I loved the way the movie came full cycle at the end. I mean, it was predictable about 15 minutes into the film, but the way there is what makes is pretty great. The whole movie had a certain documentary feel to it, completed with character interviews, but first and foremost it were the very realtsic dialogues and real-life situations that contributed to that feeling. Seriously, I could relate to some things in this film and I'm not even married, heh. It's definitely the most "realistic" movie by Allen I've seen so far and reminded me in a way of Closer, just without as much cynicism and profanity, heh. The scenes between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen felt especially real which is probably not that surprising considering they've been together for a long time in real life.

However, the best scenes in the movie still belong to Judy Davis and Sidney Pollack. Their interaction is superb and they're both great in scenes of their own too. Not sure whether Davis deserved that Oscar nom more than Pollack, though. They were both pretty great. Liam Neeson sadly was a bit bland here and same goes for Juliette Lewis. Maybe that's because the four main characters are just so much richer. Another thing I wasn't too fond of were the "interviews"...I felt there were too many of them and the movie was actually realistic enough so it could have done completely without them.

In any case, it's a very interesting and quite truthful study on relationships, struggles in married life and all the things that belong to that.