Husbands and Wives (1992 Woody Allen & scr)

Likely an uncomfortable experience for many couples, as it holds a mirror up to their own relationships. Hand held, intrusive camerawork and choppy editing (quite French New Wave) suit the subject matter really well. ("It was a fun experiment. That was a picture I wanted to be ugly.  I didn't want anything to match on it or be refined or cut well. I wanted it to be an unattractive film to see.") By their behaviour, and by the to-camera 'interviews' with the characters, we soon learn that everyone is messed up: Judy Davis (incredibly brittle - like a Mike Leigh character), Sydney Pollack, Mia Farrow, Woody Allen, Juliette Lewis and Liam Neeson - in fact it's Woody's own character that emerges single, but with credit for behaving with some integrity. It features some of Woody's most intense scenes, particularly that involving Pollack and his too young girlfriend Lysette Anthony (who looks really familiar, but isn't - well, she was in Without A Clue) after a dinner party.

It was the last collaboration of Woody and Mia - Q  suggests that some cracks were appearing in his own relationships and he's addressing them here but in the author's own words it "was written two years before things happened with Mia. There's no correlation. I was experimenting. I felt that with the documentary style it should be open, sexually and cinematically." Hmm. That may be true...

In fact towards the end we interrupted the film with a long interlude about how Woody shouldn't have to be suing Amazon at his age - he's been to court, he's been exonerated of any charges, his faithful allies like Diane Keaton and Anjelica Huston have never wavered - he should be being revered as the great artist he is, instead of receiving the same vilification that his fellow artists Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles also were subjected to. (Amazon still shows his series Crisis in Six Scenes and you can rent Celebrity etc. so that's amazingly hypocritical.)

It's photographed by Carlo Di Palma and the production designer is Santo Loquasto. I swear there's the same house from Deconstructing Harry in it. Nora Ephron's in the party scene.

It was one of his six Best Screenplay BAFTAs.