Girlfriends

This movie set in 1978, is a wonderful analysis of women's relationships with their friends and how relationships with men can change their relationships with each other. It is subtle and nuanced and emblematic of the independent films of the 1970's.

Claudia Weill was a women who tried to get into that very exclusive circle of directors which are very male. When this movie was made it was considered to be the first of many such independent films by women to try to climb that fortress.

The acting of Amy Wright and Melanie Mayron at the time felt like it wasn't acting at all. Since they were both unknowns, you felt like you were snooping into someone's personal lives rather than watching two actresses go through a script.

Susan Weinblatt (Melanie Mayron) is a struggling photographer hoping to stop doing weddings and such. She lives with aspiring writer best friend Anne Munroe in New York City. They are moving into a new apartment when Anne tells Susan that she's marrying Martin (Bob Balaban). Susan struggles professionally and personally. She's lonely with less of her best friend. She takes in hitchhiker Ceil and has an aborted fling with Rabbi Gold (Eli Wallach).

It's a New York indie about the single modern girl. It's not a sitcom where the cute blonde just can't find Prince Charming. It's more truthful and yearning than that. Her need to find her place in the modern world is palpable. Mayron has a great sense of a New York girl. The visual work is a bit flat which is excusable for an indie. Eric is a bit of a frustrating nothing. I'd rather have more awkward drama with Rabbi Gold or Ceil. The plot unfolds rather than builds drama.

In "Girlfriends," first-time writer-director Claudia Weill created a compelling depiction of a woman look at a woman growing, awkwardly and not without pain, into her adult life--that is, the life of an independent woman and artist in New York City. This film also offers what is inarguably one of cinema's most honest and insightful looks at the complex bonds between women, detailing with extraordinary sensitivity (and bits of quirky humor) the shifts, both small and seismic, that occur when one of the halves of a sustaining heterosexual female friendship effectively "leaves" to get married. The cinema verite quality one finds here may be in part a reflection of the tight budget and inexperience of a novice filmmaker, but it also gives the film an utterly compelling texture, something of the raw, uneven fabric of real life. Melanie Mayron (later "Melissa" on the ABC-TV series "ThirtySomething") gives an earnest, convincing, and touching portrayal of budding photographer Susan Weinblatt, a twenty-something woman learning to find her balance, to be true to herself, navigate a welter of complicated relationships, to deal with both loneliness and intimacy, and to come into her own as an artist. The film includes wonderful turns by Eli Wallach, playing the rabbi who oversees the bar mitzvahs Susan photo, and Viveca Lindfors as a New York gallery owner.

The central figure, played by Melanie Mayron, is a photographer sharing a large funky apartment on the Upper West Side of New York with her best girlfriend. The girlfriend suddenly decides to get married to someone she's only recently met & this seems to throw our main character into a period of soul searching. Who is she without her best friend? Can she handle the loneliness? The jealousy?

This film reminds me a lot of the Eric Rohmer films of the 70's & 80's...stylewise, it's very stark. Nothing much happens. But it's the ordinariness of the characters that seems to draw us in. In some ways, this film is too stark...so plain are the cast, so grey is the scenery & sometimes, so mundane the dialogue. But 'Girlfriends' has a warmth & a charm that has always made me remember it. To add to this, the film now has the look and feel of another era, the late 70s, which is now interesting to look at in retrospect.

Fans of 'Thirtysomething', who enjoyed Melanie Mayron's character, Melissa, will especially like this film. There are a number of parallels between the two characters. She alone with her warm smile, crooked teeth and mass of wild hair, brings enormous humanity to the proceedings.

I came across Girlfriends after reading a list of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, and he rightly called it 'wonderful'. Shot in New York in the late 70's, when master filmmakers such as Cassavetes, Scorsese and Woody Allen ruled the cities screens Weill's film went largely ignored and her brilliant lead actress never went on to make another film except for a small role in a B sci-fi thriller.

There is an obvious kinship between Weill's style and that of Woody Allen - the nervous Jewish humor, the wit and sharp dialog, but Girlfriends omits the irony and stands on its own as a singular, intelligent story of friendship and troubled relationships told from a uniquely female perspective.

Sadly it is very hard to see this film today, No streaming service carries it, and Kim's New York just shut its doors for good. I bought a poor transfer on DVD. I hope Criterion gets around to it one day, because it is truly a wonderful film.