Maridos

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

This film brings together John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk as actors on one screen. No other film has this trio, and here we have it in spades. That alone makes the film worth watching, because the way these guys interact is quite fun to watch.

Critic Jay Cocks wrote, "Husbands may be one of the best movies anyone will ever see. It is certainly the best movie anyone will ever live through." He described it as an important and great film, and as Cassavetes' finest work. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, disliked the film greatly (despite being a Cassavetes fan in general) and Pauline Kael described the movie as "infantile and offensive."

A Cassavetes film is like good jazz music: both are largely improvisational with the actor/musicians playing off each other. With Cassavetes, a basic written theme is provided and the actors embellish upon it; rhythms, tempos and emotional counterpoint are deftly manipulated. In HUSBANDS, Cassavetes is the bandleader, and Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara prove themselves to be two of the best "jazz actors" ever. HUSBANDS is "a guy film." Women have their "girl films," but here's one for we men (and for women who want to understand men). Cassavetes, Falk and Gazzara play three best friends who have just lost their fourth to a sudden death. The surviving three, all 40-something, run away from their marriages, jobs and other shackles for a few days in search of themselves, meaning, purpose. Along the way, we are intimately exposed to their fears, dreams, passions, disgusts, and their love for each other (expertly depicted male bonding: guys who understand each others' emotions, with masculinity remaining intact). Perhaps no other filmmaker/actor combo than Cassavetes and his "company" of actors have ever succeeded as well at depicting so uncompromisingly life's emotional truth. Mind you, Cassavetes' style and camera paints in broad loose strokes, so be forewarned if you dislike a hand-held shaky camera and sometimes out-of-focus shots as the camera operator tries to follow the improvising actor. But HUSBANDS has far less of this than, say, Cassavetes' FACES. And this is not all a downer film; there's much humor, too, in its sometimes bittersweet mood (for example, the Countess scene: "take your hand off my hand") All in all, and though a little long, a great film; well worth the time.

I don't enjoy John Cassavetes movies that much, but I've watched quite a few of them because of his importance to the development of independent American cinema and because of their uniqueness. I think "Husbands" will be my last Cassavetes film. I've seen it, "A Woman Under the Influence," "Faces," and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," and I feel like I can put him to rest with a thorough knowledge of his style and preoccupations.

What I do like about Cassavetes is that he explored in a way few writers/directors at the time did the complexities of male emotions. His male characters don't fall into easy categories and neither do their interior lives. In what he has his characters say and do, it's like he wanted to present the male id on screen visually, in all its obnoxious glory.

But the flip side is that it makes his characters unpleasant and exhausting to be with. I went out with a bunch of guys for a bachelor party once, and one of them was talking loudly about how ugly and fat a girl was sitting at a nearby table in a bar. He clearly wanted her to hear, and it's like he was performing for the rest of us. The other guys, because they didn't want to be accused of ruining the evening I guess, or because they genuinely found it funny, played along and encouraged him. The whole experience was so uncomfortable and toxic that I left shortly after and didn't go on to do the rest of the things planned for the evening.

Watching "Husbands" is like two hours of that experience. It's watching three guys hang out and desperately try to avoid the emotions stirred up by the recent death of a fourth buddy. This means they fight, get maudlin, get drunk, get abusive, treat women like crap. We don't get to know these guys. We're just dumped into the middle of their circle of friendship and sent off with them into the night to hang out for a couple of hours. I can't relate to Cassavetes movies. I'm the same age as the guys in this movie, maybe even a little older than they're supposed to be, with a wife and kids. I don't understand the contempt and anger they show for the world, for their wives, for each other. They don't live in a world that resembles anything I've directly experienced. And since Cassavetes just observes rather than explains, I don't learn anything about it that might help me understand more. I just get claustrophobic and want to leave the party early. Like every other Cassavetes movie I've seen, this one felt more than anything else like an endurance test.

Grade: B

As a reaction to the death of a close buddy, three middle-age men, all married with kids, go on a wild psychological joyride that includes, among other things, getting drunk, gambling, and hooking up with some prostitutes. Their reaction is, in fact, overreaction to a mid-life crisis, wherein marriage, children, and jobs create the social chains that bind.

The story's basic premise renders an interesting theme. Given some traumatic event, like the death of someone we know, it's natural to grieve and reflect on the choices we've made. We thus gain perspective. But these guys seem oblivious to that process. Their only interest is juvenile self-indulgence of the moment, which creates behavior that is boorish and crude. I could not get interested in them or their drama. Nor did I have any respect for them.

The film's visuals are okay. But the runtime is way too long. A ninety-minute plot would have gotten the point across. Every minute beyond that is superfluous. Some segments are painfully drawn-out, like the one wherein they sit around a table in a bar getting drunk and listening to other people sing silly songs. And the script's dialogue is very talky. Basically, the entire plot can be summarized as three guys getting drunk, vomiting, and talking endlessly about themselves.

Acting is borderline at best. Some scenes encourage improvisation in acting and dialogue. Visuals trend conventional. There are a lot of close-up shots.

"Husbands" tries to be a social commentary on the ties that bind. But the plot and characters are rather awful. Direction and performances trend pretentious and self-conscious. And the whole bloated production seems misguided.

There's no doubting the film-making innovation of the pioneer of American independent cinema, John Cassavetes. But if any of his films were to be considered a stain on his CV, it would be Husbands. That is only because his filmography is so highly praised, and Husbands divided the critics between those who hailed it as one of the best films ever made, and those who found the whole experience relentlessly depressing and tediously long. I'm somewhere in the middle, finding the film occasionally dipping into awkward, slightly forced improvisations, while offering some quite distressing and powerful insights into men going through a midlife crisis.

After the death of their friend, three middle-aged men - Harry (Ben Gazzara), Gus (Cassavetes) and Archie (Peter Falk) - find it difficult to cope. We follow them over the course of two days, where they drink heavily, play basketball together, and have a boisterous singing contest with friends and family. After returning home from his binge, Harry is thrown out by his wife, and shortly after announces he is flying to London. Seemingly with nothing better to do, Gus and Archie decide to join him, where they indulge is more drinking, gambling, and womanising. Gus finds himself with a much younger woman named Mary (Jenny Runacre), who is wild and unpredictable.

In the same vein as Faces (1968), Cassavetes adopts a cinema verite style, while taking the story and characters to almost hyper-reality. This is not quite the world we live in, only it feels like it. It's a more extreme world, where everything is just a little bit more depressing and the inhabitants are always loathsome in one way or another. It's as if Cassavetes wants us to take a real look at ourselves, whoever we are, and be repulsed. Harry, Gus and Archie are despicable, taking no second thoughts when committing adultery, and ultimately being loud, angry and disgusting when in the presence of others. They are also empty, devoid of any real emotion, only finding any real solitude in each other's company.

Judging from the title, Cassavetes uses the film to summarise a broad idea as to why men must go through this at some point in their life. The trio are little more than wild children, only with sexual experience, and the camera, as usual, is close, capturing the slightest facial movement, almost to the point of infringement. It's a depressing, brutal experience, where scenes go on for much longer than they should, making us want to get away from these characters. But maybe that's the point, and Cassavetes takes it to the extreme to push his point across. The final scene is certainly worth the wait however, managing to depict a character in one simple close-up as both tragic and pathetic.

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