First things first - it rains! (In a flashback scene.)
Gene Hackman, and his wife and dog, all died recently in somewhat mysterious circumstances, though he was 95. An actor with great range and charisma, who's never far away. In fact we just saw him in Runaway Jury. Here he plays a man who is madly in love with repressed housewife Gena Rowlands, but she rejects him.. we think to her regret. Particularly as her current husband is not really interested in her (Ian Holm). Because she starts over hearing Mia Farrow's therapy sessions she starts looking at her own life - sometimes in flashback but also through an extended dream scene - and we find out more about her. So in a way it's an early Blue Jasmine, but this woman is a sympathetic character who is going to change for the better,
Shot with mournful sensitivity by Sven Nykvist, contains an atypical (and mainly classical) soundtrack and concludes in an hour and fifteen - Woody's shortest film? Wonderfully complex in its storytelling techniques and really a very good human drama. He certainly could attract the talent then. With Gena are Martha Plimpton, Blythe Danner, Betty Buckley, John Houseman, sandy Dennis, David Ogden Stiers. Philip Boscoe, Frances Conroy, Fred Melamed (who I confused with Francis Ford Coppola!)
Woody himself thought the film was too cold, the characters too cold. But it's very interesting.
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