Minnie and Moskowitz

One of John Cassavetes' greatest films is also one of his least known. He made it in 1971 and over the years it has been largely forgotten. I've seen it described as a romantic comedy and even as a screwball comedy but I found it very disturbing. It's not a comedy and I'm not even sure it's a love story. It's characters are all dysfunctional, unhappy people and Minnie and Moskowitz are the most dysfunctional of all.

She works in a museum and he works as a car-parking attendant and the film charts their hit and miss relationships, with each other and with other people. It is also largely improvised which gives it the feeling of life being lived in front of our eyes rather than simply being played out but these are people you definitely wouldn't want to know or maybe they aren't people at all but just extentions of Cassavetes' off-the-wall imagination.

It is magnificently acted by Cassavetes' repertory company of friends and family though at times it feels more like a series of classes at the Actor's Studio. Gena Rowlands is Minnie and Seymour Cassell is Moskowitz and they are superb as you would expect as indeed are everyone else, particularly Val Avery and Timothy Carey as men having meltdowns in restaurants and an uncredited Cassavetes as an unfaithful husband, while the cinematography of the three credited cinematographers, (Alric Edens, Michael Margulies and Arthur J. Ornitz), gives the film the documentary-like look the director obviously intended. This is independent cinema at its purest and most unrefined; scary, moving, rarely romantic. Just don't call it a comedy.

I feel as though I know these people and have known people similar to them. These days, though, people are discouraged from showing such passion about anything especially love and loneliness. It has a slow beginning, but then look out! If you love romantic comedies, but would like to see one that had some basis in reality for a change {or at least did have back in the 70's}, then you should see this movie!

Minnie and Moskowitz is the most pathetic and ungraceful love story I've ever seen. Between Minnie, a disillusioned museum curator whose abusive married boyfriend dumps her and leaves her even more uptight and confused than she already was, and Seymour Moskowitz, a parking attendant so desperate for attention that he spends his nights going to bars and restaurants aggravating people, there is a chaotic and disenchanted match from the start. Just like so many pairings that we see every day.

In nearly every love story, there is a man and a woman, the man being confident, funny, either classically hot or attractive in his own way, whose shortcomings are charming, and the woman a wounded soul who could have any man she wants who chooses this guy because there's just something about him. These movies make everyone feel so good because the characters embody what every man and woman wants to be, not what they are. Minnie and Moskowitz, instead of indulging in any hint of fantasy in the realm of romance, depicts people who may just be more common than the attractive, confident people with so much experience playing the field. What's the story behind the love affairs of the ugly, alarmingly awkward man with no life and no job that we all run into, or the woman so crippled by insecurity that it's difficult to talk to her?

This film is not as fascinating as Cassavetes's Faces or Opening Night, but it has that riveting quality that Cassavetes always fought so hard to render, which is an unbridled depiction of people underneath the ego that hides behind itself in nearly all other films. Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, delivering startlingly pitiable people, are hardly likable. Moskowitz nearly drives us mad, let alone Minnie. He imposes himself so forcefully in her life, the dates are an explosion of the inner voices of ours that respond to the screamingly inept uneasiness on dates we've all been on, rejections we've all swallowed, and arguments we've all had that we know were our own faults. I admire a film like Minnie and Moskowitz because, as the trademark is with the films Cassavetes helmed himself, it identifies with us in 100% honesty. Our egos play no part in company with his characters, thus a tremendous achievement per performance by actor.

At times, you forget that you are watching a movie and not the lives of two average (but unique) people and the incomplete lives that they live. Searching for love, if not just acceptance, both live in a world where relationships are as confusing as the people in the relationship. By the end of the movie you can't help but smile at the images Cassavetes captures in the last 30 seconds. Without any narrative, Cassavetes gives the conclusion to the two character's lives together. True happiness...

This is the only film I have ever walked out on. The extreme senseless violence, lack of energy, dim cinematography and inane characters combine to take boring to new heights. Blech. If someone could tell me why this film was so widely regarded, I'd appreciate it.