Why is this film so loved?


I have now watched this film twice in a week, and I suppose, that I am slowly beginning to understand why, but please all you Cassavetes lovers out there explain to me, why you love this film so much.
Perhaps if you like any of his other films more you could mention that.

reply

I have watched this film once and it was enough for me. I found this movie painful to watch. I know that Cassavetes was famous for his experimental film making but this movie was awful. Some people have said that this is a character study movie but I just don't see it at all. Movies like "Darling", "A Single Man" and the "Remains of the Day" are good character study movies. This movie just shows a mentally ill woman who after months of therapy doesn't get any better until her husband slaps her and then she snaps back into reality. I just found it ridiculous.

reply

It is a wonderful film Heartbreaking in its depiction of the blue collar family, where the brutal husband and crazy mother-in-law bully delicate Mabel into having a nervous breakdown. The only people who stand up for her in the end is her little children.

reply

I managed about ten minutes -- turned it off when Falk and his friend had that conversation in the truck. That was way too much exposition. "She'll flip out if you don't call her -- your wife is going crazy!" Paraphrasing, of course, but it was very clunky. I could already tell from watching Gena getting her kids into the car with mom that she was fragile and high-strung. Why couldn't Cassavetes trust the audience to figure it out?

reply

My god, the stupidity.

reply

As I was watching it, I texted someone who had seen it and said "I'm terrified by this movie, because I know so many people like this (Both Mabel and Nick)." She looked at it from a movie point of view, but what troubled me so much was the fact that Cassavetes writes characters as caricatures, that rarely translate to real individuals, but this one at any given moment could have been people I know. Even some of the carefully scripted lines, sounded like things I've heard before.

I also think what makes this a masterpiece is the fact that every possible line is blurred. From the opening affair, where both parties feel guilt, but not sure why to the fact that Nick is really the more dangerous, to his family and himself to the fact that each character cares about others over themselves. The finale, with credits "rolling" is as important a scene as any other. Kids upstairs, phone ringing (one of their mothers?) and all these two care about, despite the craziness they've both endured, is to be together, just them. It really is a realistic depiction of the nuclear family, with all it's insanity, magnified obviously and displayed within 2, 2 1/2 hours.

reply

I have no clue. This was one of the most bizarre and hard to watch films I've ever seen. I had to suffer through it. Yikes!


Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

reply

OK, let me try to explain the film to you in a simple way as it seems to be a bit complicated in its exposition and it's vague, it felt the same to me a while back

First, life is vague and strange, if you try to look at another person that you don't know his /her life. But you can imagine and this film give you a lot of hints: visually and auditory.
The whole point of this film is not telling you forefront that the woman is crazy or abused, that’s the whole point of this film, to make your own opinion. It’s a metaphor for the urban world we live in right now(the film was way ahead of it's time):

1. The rush of expectation, family and being a good parent.

2. Maybe, how much did the woman sacrifice from her hopes and dreams and chose, a family life when she could chose to pursue her own ambition?

3. Fell in love with a man who thought she truly loved a supported her, but as the years passed, she realized that he eroded her like rust: manipulation, control, superiority, an abusive relationship in these days…

4. And maybe after all this control and madness, she became under the INFLUENCE, of his husbands actions, expectations and the lack of inspiration in life…

5. Imagine if you truly love YOURSELF, YOUR DREAM CAREER, AND YOUR FAMILY, all the same but because of circumstances you only have to pick one and have the rest erode in the back of your mind for the rest of your life? It’s subjective, but you have to think in the context of the woman in the film and then you will understand the film.

6. The title: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, is self-explanatory. She feels the need (drug) of acceptance, because her SELF has been stripped by her children and husband, friend and family, she doesn’t know herself anymore because she serves the others.
Hope this gives you an explanation. It’s not complete, I could write a 20 page essay, but hope it’s

reply

I appreciate the effort fmakegeo, but this movie was just way too *beep* up for me.

Boom.





Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

reply

I don't understand it either. It was wholly obnoxious. Even when the wife wasn't acting crazy, it was just a bunch of people yelling, shouting and screaming. I got stressed out watching it because it was about 50 minutes of Falk yelling for everybody to be calm and normal when he was shouting and screaming like a lunatic.

From a technical and acting standpoint, yeah, it was a good movie. But I couldn't get over how obnoxious everybody was.

reply

The whole movie is a complete mess. Just pure hype.

reply