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A married couple, Sally (Judy Davis) and Jack (Sydney Pollack), tell their best friends--another married couple named Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow)--that they are separating. This news throws Gabe and Judy into a tailspin. It makes them reexamine their own marriage and find it lacking. Meanwhile Sally starts seeing a handsome, romantic man (Liam Neeson) and Jack is living with a girl at least 30 years his junior. This film follows what happens to them over the course of a year.

A fascinating film. I'm not married (or even straight) but I don't think that matters--this is about love, sex and relationships and has dialogue and situations that anyone can relate to. Allen's script is right on target--the insights are just incredible, and we slowly begin to see exactly how all of the four main characters really are. During the film they are all interviewed by a never seen person--these interviews really help the story and reveals how everybody feels about the others. It pulls everything together.

The acting is almost all great. Allen and Farrow were living together when this was filmed--when it was released they were in a bitter custody battle. This movie actually provides insight to WHY they broke up--their argument scenes are just a bit too realistic. Davis and Pollack are just superb in their roles. They let you feel their characters pain and confusion--just great acting. Neeseon isn't asked to do much but he is very affecting in his scenes. However Juliette Lewis is terrible as a college student. Her voice is nasal and whiny and her acting is pretty lousy--but it doesn't ruin the film.

I saw this back in 1992 in a theatre and loved it. Twelve years later I STILL love it. A great film. I'm only giving this an 8 though. There are two big faults with this film: the hand-held jittery camera work being the main one. My guess is Allen filmed it this way to make the film more immediate and give it a documentary feel. It works but it IS distracting. Also it gets a little repetitious towards the end. Still this is well worth seeing. Recommended.

Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow) have invited their good friends Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis) for a small dinner at their quaint Manhattan apartment. Their abode is full of books and knickknacks all pointing to a comfortable urbanite life in the largest city in the world. Then Jack and Sally reveal some surprising news…after years of seemingly happy marriage, the two have agreed to a separation and eventual divorce. After that bomb is dropped the two couples reexamine their relationships with each other, trying to find meaning in romances both current and past while discovering the good, the bad and the ugly in marriage.

Woody Allen is mostly known for his comedies. But while Husbands and Wives has some pretty spot on observational humor, the story is largely somber and dramatic. Not dramatic in the sense of a Wednesday afternoon soap opera but a benign drama that with a few spikes of activity focuses mostly on the characters. There is no clever high concept or narrative liberties here like say, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985); the film is more straight-laced and character driven along the lines of Interiors (1978) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

And what of the characters or rather the actors who flesh them out? Judy Davis, Mia Farrow and Juliette Lewis are the obvious standouts, representing three very different women all of which are looking for the same thing; someone to love and someone to love them back. Davis received an Oscar nomination for her role as a bitter divorcée trying to come to terms with her ex-husband's infidelity and being single again. She's continually frustrated and confused by the yearnings of the heart occasionally even lashing out on her boyfriend Gates (Liam Neeson). She's cynical and wary of attachment yet deep down she knows that her entanglements with Jack aren't over.

Mia Farrow is a stark counterpoint to Diane Keaton's brassy personalities of Allen's earlier work. Farrow's intensity lies always below the surface, providing the perked looks and mousiness of a young ingénue with the mind and body language of a veteran in the trials of love. It's a shame that out of the twelve Woody Allen films she has been in (for which Husbands and Wives was most famously her last) she had never received recognition by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her stellar work.

Juliette Lewis who plays one of Gabe's young students from his Literature course, has the appearance and vulnerability of a dewy-eyed devotee. Yet when the amiable Gabe discovers he might be the object of desire here and Lewis's Rain the controller, he recoils. There's a scene where the two are in a cab discussing the latest draft of his book. Unable to take criticism, Gabe calls Rain a 20-year-old twit and says "I'd hate to be your boyfriend, he must go through hell." Rain cavalierly responds "Well, I'm worth it."

Those who bemoan Allen's post-Annie Hall (1977) work won't find relief from his more meditative works of the 1980's. While most of the characters are likable they sometimes do unlikeable things, each on their own journey of discovery. I suppose we all do things we regret for love and those with a mature outlook on the subject matter will find a lot to enjoy and a lot to flinch at in Husbands and Wives. I suppose the heart wants what the heart wants.

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"Husbands and Wives" is a Woody Allen´s film for mature audiences that has not aged and gets better with the years. Jack and Sally and Gabe and Judy are best friends. When the first couple announces that they are going to split up to have new experiences, the initial shock to Gabe and Judy reverts to questioning of their own marriage with a surprising conclusion. This simple storyline about separation processes on the hands of Woody Allen turns into a funny and thoughtful film, supported by a great cast and witty dialogues and situations. This is a movie that can be seen and assessed from time to time. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil0: "Maridos e Esposas" ("Husbands and Wives")

This is one of Woody Allen's greatest films, but it took me two viewings to fully appreciate it. I first saw it in 1992 at the theatre upon its initial release with my then-girlfriend, when I was 30 and she was 24; but this second time was in 2005 on home video, with me still in the same relationship thirteen years later and married to this same woman for ten of those; it really hit a nerve for me as a middle-aged spouse. I'm not so sure it can appeal to every viewer, but I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to older married couples everywhere.

Allen's hard-hitting film dissects the long-term effects of being with the same person for a long time: familiarity, infidelity, stagnation and indifference. To drive the point home still further, the photography is crudely rendered in a sometimes confusing hand-held camera style which works wonders. Woody's cast is excellent - beginning with the note-perfect Sydney Pollack and strong-willed Judy Davis, who play a bored married couple announcing a trial separation, shocking and convincing their friends (Woody and wife Mia Farrow) to take a closer look at their own vulnerable relationship. Juliette Lewis is once again a very good young actress as a twenty-year-old student in Allen's writing class who becomes infatuated with him and turns out to be his protégé. Liam Neeson is strong as the new man Davis tries to reheat her romantic life with. One of Woody Allen's best performances here too, where he's more reserved and human -- not as whiny or nerdy as we're so accustomed to seeing him. Even better, he actually makes us more interested in the other characters instead of himself.

The mature story is sometimes told in a candid documentary-like format, where the participants alternately give their own perceptions as though they're spilling their guts to a psychotherapist, and then ultimately wind up expressing what they've learned from these experiences. I happen to agree with the idea that a couple must learn to accept imperfections in a marriage and work through them, together.* Released at the height of the media controversy surrounding Allen and his relationship with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi, there may well have been some similarities on display here.

*(EDITED UPDATE): Unfortunately, my wife and I divorced in 2010, after us being together for 21 years (married for 16 of those). I'm now in a new relationship and I suppose this experience will only serve to make HUSBANDS AND WIVES even more effective on the next viewing. **** out of ****

I have always been a fan of Woody Alan and this movie really expresses the essence of his personal and constant recurring confrontation with the meaning of life. His pursuit of a significant context in human relationships always drives him to the brink of madness as he realizes all too well that there is no basis for real values in a life cycle which is basically totally absurd.The dark shadow of the philosophy of despair is constantly present but often relieved by a delightful form of sarcastic humor. This movie is for people who know what it's all about and are conscious of the fact that we are all trapped in this the "comédie humaine". The acting is excellent with no flaws at all. Judy Davis is a sheer delight to watch and Juliette Lewis - fascinating as always - with her mixture of Lolita-like innocence, her girlish ways and sudden adult insights would be a dangerous temptress for any middle-aged guy.

Any film that affects me emotionally I consider great. But a film that affects me so much that I feel it physically can be called a masterpiece. Narrative does not normally have such power. When a spectator is learning about people who aren't directly connected with you, who are usually not even real, then he/she should realize that these characters are apart from your life and should not matter.

Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives is a film, however, which sets the viewer in the action on screen. He does this with perfect hand-held cameras and jump cuts. The camera work makes you feel like you're right there, and it adds a breakneck speed to the film. This seems like one of the most realistic films ever made.

I have no complaints about this film myself. I would give it a 10/10, but make no mistake: this is a very unpleasant film to watch. I like unpleasant films, but this one is particularly harsh. The situations develop like a fly landing in a Venus fly trap. A character will walk towards a life which he/she believes will bring sweetness and happiness, but the new life quickly engulfs them. And when the film ends, the characters are seen stepping into a different trap: quicksand. No audience member could be naive enough to think that any of the characters are standing in a desirable place when the film closes.

Husbands and Wives is a movie that could cause divorces, and could cause long-term lapses between relationships. If nothing else, it is a film that will make you cringe and squirm.

"Match Point" was the movie that converted me into a Woody Allen-fan. I had literally hated the man's work, but suddenly I found that these movies really spoke to me more than before. I guess you just have to grow older and get a little life experience before you can appreciate Woody Allen's fabulous writing. Lately, I've been catching up on his filmography and was blown away by his immense power of observation. Out of all his classic movies that I've seen in the past couple of days "Husbands And Wives" made the biggest impression so far. This movie is fearless, honest and true. Allen really hits the nail on the head with this one.

Unlike movies like "Crimes And Misdemeanors" or the aforementioned "Match Point" (which are both great) "Husbands And Wives" isn't laden with symbolism and there are no highly philosophical thoughts to be found. The movie is merely depicting the universal truth that it's tough to remain honest and passionate in a marriage. Masterfully Allen shows his struggling characters in all their weaknesses without ever making them unlikeable. These characters falter between loyalty, fear of loneliness and an undeniable desire for passion. Everybody who's ever been in a longtime relationship will be able to identify with these problems, but only the brave ones will be able to admit that to their partner.

That's the beauty of this movie. Allen says what everybody else is either too afraid or too hypocritical or simply unable to. "Husbands And Wives" shows what the fewest people understand: the egoistical side of "love", the way we cling to relationships because we're afraid of being alone, but also the simple fact that sometimes we need to lose something to understand how much we need it. Even when there's still love we can reach a point where we lie and betray the other person, just because sometimes people are confused about their lives and their feelings.

Nobody has voiced our confusion about love and death as accurately as Woody Allen and he's rarely done it better than here. "Husbands And Wives" is recommendable for everyone, especially couples, but be prepared that watching this might lead to uncomfortable discussions. The truth is hardly ever convenient.

Granted this is not Woody's funniest film, but it delivers the goods. Like most of Woody's work, it plays out like a photographed play (he's not a highly visual filmmaker), but if you've seen any of his other films you shouldn't be surprised. The film is low-key, at times too low-key, and if you've seen any other relationship comedies of this nature the story should come predictable, but the characters are very well-written and engaging. I was especially interested in the relationship between Woody and his beautiful student, played by Juliette Lewis. There are lots of funny moments. I see that Judy Davis got nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar. She really was great in the film. It's nice to see that Woody often finds a place for her in all his recent films. Sydney Pollack is also great. Basically, the whole cast is talented and it's pretty much an ensemble effort.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

Woody Allen went the documentary (ish) route, again, with his 1992 film Husbands and WIves. The film follows a married couple's deterioration after their married friends decide to separate. By telling the story in documentary format with a hand-held camera with a lot of movement and close-up shots, the audience is completely immersed in the story, almost like voyeurs as we see a marriage crumble apart.

Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis) break some tough news to their friends Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow) that they will be separating. Judy and Sally are quite nonchalant while delivering the news but Gabe and Judy are devastated. Gabe remarks that theirs is a marriage benchmark as he only thinks of them as "Jack and Sally". Judy is completely devastated even retiring to her bedroom in a dither over hearing the news. Gabe and Judy console themselves and each other as Jack and Sally go on to see other people. The news changes them, as well, however. Gabe and Judy both begin to question aspects of their life and relationship and start to believe that they may not be as happy in their marriage as they've grown comfortable believing. Gabe starts succumbing to the admiration of one of his female students and Judy realizes she is attracted to another man. What began as a series of changes in the lives of Jack and Sally has delivered life- changing impact for Gabe and Judy.

I love the documentary style Woody used for husbands and Wives. I've heard many criticize it, yet, I think it's perfect to convey the intimate emotions dealt with in the film. I especially enjoy how real Woody depicts human emotions in this film. Who hasn't recovered from a breakup when one moment you are whole, moving on, and living your life when all of a sudden you get a nagging thought in your head that you just can't shake and you become a mix of anger and desperation in an instant? That's exactly what Woody showed in the scene in which Sally was in the apartment of a man she was to go on a date with but she couldn't shake the news that Jack had moved someone in his home just three weeks after their separation. That scene, as gut-wrenching as it was, was my favorite because it was so real. That really is how emotions work, they are wild and unpredictable, quickly changing based on new information. Husbands and Wives was a truly human film with rich touches of Woody Allen (another Bergman reference and a comment from Woody about walking in Paris in the rain) definitely a stand out in the excellent filmography of Woody Allen.

Released in the hype of Allen and Farrow's breakup in the wake of his infamous Soon-Yi scandal, HUSBANDS AND WIVES archly and topically plumbs into the marital conundrums of two couples, Gabe (Allen) and Judy (Farrow, bookends her collaboration with Allen to the tune of 13), and their best friends Jack (Pollack) and Sally (Davis).

For one thing, the film adopts a jittery cinematographic style (aided by hand-held cameras and Steadi-cams) which certainly is not Allen's modus operandi, and lets rip the neurotic, taxing, unrelieved relationship squabbles to full throttle, inflamed by Jack and Sally's abrupt declaration of their separation after being married for over 15 years. Two different reactions ensure, Gabe retains his sangfroid facing a bolt from the blue but Judy apparently loses it, thinking that her closest friend has been keeping her marriage snags to herself, that seems to be a big blow to their time- honoured friendship, but on a more intuitive level (as later Sally astutely dissects), there is something deeply self-serving in Judy's reaction.

Gabe and Judy are jolted to scrutinize their own 10-year-young matrimony, where crevices start to crack open, here, Allen deploys another gimmick, a faux-documentary with character revealing their inner feelings in the form of an interview, Gabe confesses he is a sucker for "kamikaze women" (with trying smugness) until he meets Judy, whom he deciphers is a mastermind of passive-aggressive manipulation, aka. she always gets what she wants in the end. That is what happens, Allen, a professor in literary, becomes increasingly attracted by one of his student Rain (Lewis) while being self-aware of the clichéd professor-student entanglement. Meanwhile, Judy, lends a helping hand by introducing her newly single colleague Michael (Neeson, a disarmingly pleasurable presence) to Sally, who is fumed when she finds out Jack has moved in with his new lover Sam (Anthony), a young aerobics trainer, merely three weeks after their separation. But, what complicates the situation is, subconsciously, Judy carries a torch for the gentlemanlike Michael, so in the end of the day, a paradigm shift is bound to shatter the status quo.

Allen's script, as rapier-like as always in laying bare the intricate verities of gender politics and monogamous dilemma, eventually, plumps for a morally ego-boosting windup for Gabe (Allen's alter-ego) who has savored the tempting kiss from a young hottie he craves for, and then rebuffs her advance with all the dignity in the world to remain morally uncorrupted (which blows up in audience's face when juxtaposed with its sardonic divergence from reality), whereas for Judy, her seemingly happy ending betrays Gabe's own complacent shrewdness of knowing her too well, for my money, that's where this otherwise rather piquant and honest-to-goodness modern marriage assessment leaves an unsavory aftertaste, which actually has been lurking behind a majority of Allen's oeuvre.

But what makes HUSBANDS AND WIVIES head and shoulders over his lesser works is the cynosure of the cast, namely, the divine Judy Davis, an ever-so entrancing showstopper, revels in emitting of Sally's often self-contradictory but ultimately revealing emotional states with sheer intensity, veracity without forfeiting the salutary outpourings of humor and wits (her post-coital "hedgehogs and foxes" rumination is a gas!), Marisa Tomei, as excellent as she is in MY COUSY VINNY (1992), should hand over her Oscar to Mr. Davis, a blatant robbery in the Academy history. Whilst no one can steal the limelight from her, one must admit Sydney Pollack is quite a trouper in the other side of the camera as well, his outstanding two-hander with a feisty Lysette Anthony alone can effortlessly bust a gut, which only leaves, the story-line concerns Gabe and Judy pales in comparison with its pseudo-cerebral self-deception and self-doubt, no wonder Jack and Sally would not open up to them, they are much messier.

On a recent documentary I saw on Woody Allen's career, with him being interviewed, he said of this film that it was one of only a small number of times in his career he felt he carried over what he wanted on the page to the screen. Though I've never read the actual shooting script to Husbands and Wives, I can see what he means. I've seen the film several times, if not all the way through then usually when it is on TV, and it always strikes my attention the frankness of it all, how it follows almost no rules. It shares a kinship with another Woody masterpiece, Deconstructing Harry, also about a neurotic writer and the relationship problems around him. Here he focuses not only on himself, but also on another married couple, played by Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis (the later of which one of Woody's best in his quasi stock company), and what he calls the "discombobulated" characters. It is funny here and there, but in reality this is a great film of dramatic sincerity and occasional intensity.

Woody himself is in his final collaboration with his ex-wife Mia Farrow, who themselves in the film play a married couple working through some issues. There is also the sensitive, passionate man between the two couples played by Liam Neeson, who acts as a good mediator between the two intertwining story lines. And Juliette Lewis is surprisingly good as a young would-be author who befriends the author/professor Woody plays in the film. What works to make all of these relationships, with warts and all, is that the dialog is always totally, without a doubt, believable. One can see people like this around the New York city upper-middle class landscape, with the neuroses as intriguing as they are frank and even a little disturbing.

While the film shares a kinship with some of the dark, brooding themes of Interiors, and quintessentially European (in a good way) attitude towards editing and composition to Deconstructing Harry, it also has (also 'Harry's' DP) the eye of Carlo Di Palma. Di Palma, who also worked with Antonioni on Red Desert and Blowup, works with great ease with the aesthetics of the scenes. This time the camera-work is practically all hand-held, lit with nearly (seemingly) no artificial lights, and with a kind of intensity that is sometimes lacking in other Woody films. In wrong, amateur hands this style could falter, but with the material given, the constant interest and conviction in the performances, and Allen directing, it works. Having Di Palma as a cinematographer is as good a bet as having (a mentally-all-together) Marlon Brando as your star, and because of the documentary realism involved it always remains interesting. I could watch this movie, at least most scenes, just as easily as I could with films like Manhattan or 'Harry', because it is one of those special times in the filmmaker's career where everything comes together, however how raw it may be.

Woody manages to bring to the viewer the truth between marriages that is not filmed. He gives us the fly's point of view we would like to be am some occasions. The film behind the nostalgia of the 90s. Love is treated with care that makes me rethink attitudes of today . The rich dialogs are one combination of talent and performance of great actors chosen for the film. The cinema needs more realism, like in that movie. Realistic conversations are essential for people to feel the real emotion in film director. Husbands and wives is one example. It's great to see Woody Allen films of that era . We are transported to the era of good treatment between people in a relationship. In a world where we are controlled by cellular and lack of subject, the script becomes very rich in subjects to discuss on the sofa.

Woody Allen makes good, very good, and excellent films.

Husbands and Wives is a very good film with excellent performances. It is not a comedy but rather a dramedy that explores marriages and relationships of four main characters. It has several funny moments and dialogs (it is Allen after all) but it has disturbing and sad scenes, too.

When Jack and Sally (Sidney Pollack and Judy Davis) announce that they're separating, this comes as a shock to their best friends Gabe and Judy (Allen and Farrow). They start to reevaluate their own marriage only to find out that it is not as perfect as they thought. Very soon Jack and Sally, and then Gabe and Judy start to meet new people - young, bright, and attractive. They all hope that new is better, and for some of them it is true while the others come to understanding that true love involves loving another's imperfections even when very well aware of them.

This film is for all husbands and wives, lovers, and partners around the world. It is for couples who've been in a relationship for a month, a year, or decades. It is for singles who are ready or who think they want to enter a relationship. It is also for people who don't. All of us have been or may find ourselves in a situation or relationship or having a conversation like the ones in the Allen's film. All of us think and talk about love, trust, understanding, fidelity, sex, and yes - marriage.

The best scenes of the film belong to Allen and Farrow. Some of their conversations in the movie probably reflect the situation in their own relationship that ended soon after the film was made. It is the last film Allen made with Farrow.

Judy Davis played the role of her carrier practically stealing the film. I was shocked to find out that she received all possible Critics Awards that year and lost Best Supporting Oscar to Marisa Tomei. I love Tomei's performance in My Cousin Vinny (1992) but nomination itself would've been enough. Davis was the Best Supporting actress (I saw all films with nominated performances). Sidney Pollack (The Oscar winning director of Out of Africa and two times nominee for Tootsie and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) and Liam Nisson were wonderful. I did not like Juliet Lewis at all. What she did adorably in Cape Fear with De Niro for ten minutes scene, she tried to stretch for over an hour here - did not work, IMO.

I like "Husbands and Wives" - it was interesting to watch, and it left me thinking if such thing as perfect relationship is ever possible, and what it would take to not only find it but to keep it.

The film captures you at the very first scene, and it ends before you notice. An important lesson can be learned from the film - "The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence". Woody couldn't deliver it better. Every character has a significant depth and conflicts, together with a great story behind. The chemistry between them is very exciting, and the actors deliver a great performance. A great insight is that in real life, Woody and Mia broke up the same year. Is it coincidential?

The 1980s are regarded by some cineastes as Allen's golden years, when he knocked a string of masterpieces out of the park. The era was also a dismal time, the era of greed is good, Reagan's troubling forays into the political life of other nations south of the US border, hard drugs, Aids, and other miseries. Allen's best movies are a mixture of nostalgia and contemporary malaise at this time, but whether they're set during the Great Depression or in the 1980s present, they all have a dismal, late autumn / early winter look about them. Husbands and Wives (1992) is the last opus in that lugubrious line.

Like the Oscar-laden Hannah and her Sisters (1986), Husbands and Wives is a movie where Allen's hunger to emulate the European dramatists finds its richest expression, being successfully integrated alongside his own American forte - comedy. This movie is a comedy, or as Chris Rock would likely say, a drama with jokes in it. It also marks a departure in his cinematography. The camera tends to follow people around their apartments more than in previous films, sort of like a privileged onlooker, a welcome voyeur. There is also a return to the documentary-like elements, such as the interviews to camera with the characters, almost as if they were talking to a therapist as part of a study. Allen had done this in his first feature, Take the Money and Run (1969), but for purely comedic purposes; here it's for dramatic commentary.

The film is dominated by Allen, Mia Farrow, fellow director Sydney Pollack in the role of Jack, and Allen favourite Judy Davis as Sally. When the latter two announce their trial separation to their friends Gabe and Judy (the former two) it shocks them. By the end of the movie both marriages will have undergone significant changes. Actress Juliette Lewis plays against type as creative writing student Rain (Rain?), and likewise pre-action movie Liam Neeson does his lanky best as the poetry-loving Michael.

Obviously the film carries a further layer of fascination because it was during the filming, nearing the end of the production, that the longstanding and highly unconventional relationship of Allen and Farrow shattered beyond repair. As one film critic said, did life imitate art or was art inspired by real life? Just so you know, the movie is not a mirror for the real world goings-on.

Like certain later films by Ingmar Bergman, this Allen film is one that inspires more admiration than love, I think. It is one of a select five that Allen himself - his own fiercest critic - has listed as a successful realisation of his artistic intention. It's a serious film, leavened by a little humour, tackling a serious domestic subject, discord in long term relationships, marital discontent, the hunger for some strange. It's about values and impulses. It is a very intimate drama, one made all the more potent by the storm of publicity which came with it. It ain't much fun, and I rarely return to it, but it is good medicine for anyone middle-aged and on the verge of doing something daft.

Explorations into the human psyche are always dangerous ones, when it comes to cinema. Sometimes they work and other times they are devoid of emotion and are nothing more at failed attempts. Husbands and Wives falls into the former category. This film explores the relationships of four people and the people around them. Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow) are a long married couple whose best friends are Sally (Judy Davis) Jack (Sydney Pollack). When Sally and Jack announce that they are getting a divorce after 15 years of seemingly happy marriage, Gabe and Judy begin to question their own marriage and how stable it really is. A varying mix of other characters are thrown into the story and play unexpectedly important roles in the character progression.

The film takes a little while to get off its feet, but once it does it becomes an intriguing and mature look into human nature and relationships. Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Manhattan) is a very diverse filmmaker who approaches ideas in new and unconventional ways. His writing here is superbly sophisticated and succeeds at being entertaining and fixating without being overly vulgar. Allen employs some very creative camera techniques in this film. His long takes allow the actors to truly act and react. At times you almost feel as if you are watching a stage play, with the camera swooping around a room as the actors act out an entire scene without a single break in the action. Another technique that Woody Allen uses to subtly weigh the emotion of the film down on you, is the long takes that focus on one characters face. It's another way to quietly press emotion down on the viewer without over exaggerating or ramming the emotional pinpoints down your throat.

The writing, directing, and character depth and development are all exquisite in Husbands and Wives. It is a wonderfully constructed film, yet my biggest complaint here is a personal one. I couldn't connect with the characters in the way I'm sure Allen intended his audience to connect. This is not so much a fault of the filmmakers, but really a fault of my own personal world view. Husbands and Wives explores the relationships in marriage, divorce, and forbidden love. These are things that I as a 16 year old kid have not experienced in my lifetime. I feel like the film is made to connect to on a deep emotional level, and I have no point of reference to do so. I enjoyed watching the film, but after a while I realized that it is essentially just an exuberant expose of dialouge and human interaction.

Husbands and Wives is an enjoyable film and I could see where the emotion was intended to be, and it kept me captivated, but I could only become so attached to the film as a whole.

Husbands and Wives exemplifies everything that people "don't like" about Allen's work; that its Allen-centric, in that his literary leanings and obvious qualities as a writer for some reason put him in front of the camera half the time, and that the main characters are all over-privileged Manhattan creatives or academics with swanky apartments, that conveniently never seem to do any actual work, just revel in the emotional drama and romantic comedy potential of their personal lives.

I don't dislike Allen's films per se, his recent picture Blue Jasmine has an excellent script, by turns witty, brilliant, insightful etc. Everything Allen would ideally like to see in himself every morning in the mirror is here, and other films of his are well known little masterpieces, but Husbands and Wives is badly overrated, and it bothers me a bit that major voices in the US media nodded approvingly when the film opened. (see Rotten Tomatoes.com).

The main problem, to put it bluntly, is that 80% of the film is in hand held, head and shoulders footage of the actors, intercut with occasional locked off shots of the cast confessing guilt, contempt and regrets over their mid-life failed marriages. This, in itself, makes the film feel more like a radio play that happens to take place on screen, and although shaky hand held shots can (and do) create a 'there, in the middle of it all' feel for drama, it goes way overboard. The film feels cheap, claustrophobic and repetitive.

The other problem is the plot - or lack of. Essentially, this is the story of two couples entering mid life, feeling disappointed with their relationships and going through with break-ups and affairs, and Husbands and Wives is definitely more drama than comedy. In both cases, the husbands leave their partners for younger women, in Allen's case considerably younger, and in the other guys case, just for a young blonde that likes sex. There's not much to add here plotwise, except the situation opens up a lot of space for Allen's observations on relationships and human sexuality in a mature sense that you don't find often elsewhere in Hollywood movies.

...But did I mention the film feels plot less? It definitely does! Woody Allen's real talents are his skills as a writer and his ability to create great female characters, so during a revelatory and surprisingly funny exchange between Allen and his extramarital crush (a 20 year old literature student, played by Juliette Lewis) the film feels finished, but for some reason drags on for yet more, and more arguments, observations, exchanges etc. Its a badly made movie, without much plot and some big name actors taking a pay cut to work with a writing talent. Is it a great movie? Well, sales aren't an indicator of quality, but its a modestly budgeted movie that only made half its investment back. Other films of his live up to their reputation, this one doesn't.

Woody Allen really knows how to write good male and female characters.

In documentary-style, Allen shows us what most middle aged couples fear to face: the dissolution of their marriages, due to habit, boredom and frustration, that kind of situation that arises simply by living with someone for many years, without any major dramatic event triggering a divorce.

Allen and Farrow plays Gabe and Judy. Since the movie was the last before their acrimonious split, most of their dialogue sounds uncomfortably realistic. Pollack and Davis are their friends Jack and Sally, who set the story in motion with their "trial" separation.

Soon all four friends are entangled in new relationships or fantasise about one. Sally and then Judy are attracted to romantic Michael (Neeson), while Gabe is infatuated with Rain (Juliette Lewis) a student, who reciprocates.

However, Rain is "just" a groupie for older-men with a most annoying nasal voice and this indiscretion ends nowhere. On a side note, I never liked Lewis, who once again plays a feeble, coquettish nymphet.

I am not a big fan of Farrow, either and with her oversize sweaters, long skirts and short hair she is here at her most unattractive. Her character is whiny and pushy, making her my least favorite of the quartet.

Sally is also an annoying character, so neurotic as to make you wonder why Jack would consider going back to her, while Jack is the usual middle-aged man lured into a relationship by sex with a younger model.

The movie ends with a twist that I found hard to believe, and a lot of ambiguity about the future of the characters that I found a lot more believable. Not for the romantics, but definitely worthy.