MovieChat Forums > An Unmarried Woman (1978) Discussion > Dumbest/dullest/most dated part of this ...

Dumbest/dullest/most dated part of this movie

posted 11 years ago by hey_stella_stella
13 replies | jump to latest

Dumbest part: When she asks her doctor if he would have asked her out for a drink before she was divorced. What the F---? You are ANGRY with your doctor because he doesn't ask married patients out for a drink after giving them a physical?

Dullest part: the long, monotonous session with the therapist when she drones on about 'your feelings are your feelings,' blah, blah, blah. Was that woman on downers?

Most dated: Where to start? The whole film assumes that the only thing that happens in marriage or adult life is sex and that all you need to be happy is to have sex as often as possible - so '70s. (Before you say, 'that's how it was in those days' declare if you were even alive in that decade, and whether or not you were married for the entire decade: millions of people had happy, companionable marriages based on mutual things in common, love, communication, shared values, etc. before and during the 1970s.) Drinking and pills are the solution to every bad mood (which are only caused by not having enough sex, of course). Picking up a total stranger for anonymous sex is healthy and good instead of sleazy, dangerous and very likely to be totally unsatisfying. Then of course, there's the whole idea that divorce is something that makes people (especially women) stronger and happier, when we know that divorce makes people miserable and they carry around anger and die younger than people who stay married.

This is so painfully dated, shallow, stilted. Only interesting from a historical perspective, to remind ourselves how STUPID the '70s were (and yes, I was alive in that decade and I remember how stupid people's ideas were even then).

[–] rrb 11 years ago

To come to this site to post this rant about "how stupid people's ideas were" in the 70s, you must be one sad, bitter person.

[–] MrsOcean 11 years ago

That rant is probably coming from a unmarried woman

[–] ec1979 9 years ago

That is nasty and uncalled-for.

[–] first-things-first 10 years ago

What I took from the movie was a couple not talking, and that is not dated, in my opinion. I do agree that sex is a symptom of something else, if I understand you correctly.
OT-A lot of countries think we Americans are hung up on sex, so the director may have wanted to expose some our of hang ups and contradictions.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

[–] tigerbos 10 years ago

She was upset at the doc BECAUSE he was audacious in asking her out for a drink which was under any circumstances, inappropriate. She was barely divorced or separated at the time so it was bad timing. Doctors aren't supposed to ask their patients out on dates regardless of whether their patients are married or not. Did you REALLY NOT GET that scene?

I'm uncertain why you bothered watching a film that was made in the 70's and then complain that it was DATED. lol Believe it or not, this film does not encompass the 70's. This is one person's perspective. It was a fictional film. Really what is funny about your statements is there were a lot of things that weren't dated in this film like yes, men's obsession with sex and their views of women really haven't changed that much. I'd hate to see your impressions of films like Taxi Driver or Looking for Mr. Goodbar after reading your opinion of this film.

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman 1967-2014... a tremendously great and talented actor.

[–] StarWarsDisco 10 years ago

Wow, you are one dumb *beep*.

[–] JessePomeroy 10 years ago

I tried watching this recently, having fuzzy memories of it from my youth. This one is up there with some of the most self-involved, pretentious swill that has ever been made, and that makes it all the more frightening that it is held in such high esteem.

Jill Clayburgh was a poor-acting ugly stepsister of Diane Keaton.

I never did finish watching it, as it is long enough to cure insomnia. Ugh.

[–] rrb 10 years ago

Jill Clayburgh was a poor-acting ugly stepsister of Diane Keaton.

Right. That's why she won Best Actress at Cannes for her performance. LOL!!!

[–] !!!deleted!!! (61689113) 8 years ago

I'd be wary of discussing a film's supposed stupidity when your post is about as shoutily stupid and shallow as it's possible to get. Assuming you're not just deliberately misunderstanding everything in the film for effect -

* Erica isn't 'angry' that her doctor never asked her out for a drink while she was married. She's angry because his asking her out at all is insensitive and boorish, given that she's there for a health check-up and is feeling dreadful; making it worse is his dishonesty about his motives, and his shrugging bemusement at her coming right out and saying so. And while the doctor has been guilty of bad taste or indiscretion at most, the film as a whole dramatizes the kinds of advances well-behaved women are constantly expected to absorb without complaint. Erica's increasingly belligerent responses upset the men around her (and they aren't meant to seem especially level-headed to us either) because she refuses to play the socially accepted Put Up And Shut Up game.

* Penelope Russianoff's performance as the therapist is one of the most striking in the cast, and I think her naturalistic style of delivery, and the obviously part-improvised nature of the therapy scenes themselves, are meant to act as a foil to Erica's more abandoned moments and to replicate the nature of a session, in which the therapist is calm and controlled precisely so as to free up the patient and encourage her to talk. Beyond that, if you find the actor herself 'boring', and are sure you're not confusing her with her character, well.... it's all a matter of taste.

* And finally ... Where to Start, indeed with your moaning about the film's 'datedness' , by which I assume you mean the film doesn't allow you to believe it's taking place in 2013, or in some timeless vaccuum. Your accusatory interpretations of what the film is up to seem merely to be based on your own tight-collared (and boring) sense of morality: presumably the mere dramatising of sexual behavior of which you disapprove is enough for you to feel personally attacked; but to take you at your word, and assume that you are seeing an argument in the film, I'd have to say you're just as wrong as can be. The film isn't anti-marriage, or pro-sleaze (even if those simple opposites belong to no-one's grab bag of intruding obsessions but your own); it quite clearly and continually promotes open communication and honesty in all relationships, whether they culminate in a registered marriage or develop in some other way. This theme is stated and re-stated in just about every scene in the movie, including those therapy sessions you balked at, and would seem to be a universal concern, rather than one limited to a particular decade. Certainly the style of conversation and behavior in the film reflects the year (1977) and the place in which it was filmed and set, but 'datedness' as a concept means something a little different from merely 'old' (or 'not morally right' in your bizarre interpretation).

* You're also guilty of confusion in your argument - you say that the film is obsessed with sex, which you characterise as being 'so 1970s' and then whisk around to pre-empt any reply by saying the 1970s weren't like that at all, and demanding the reader of your post 'declare' whether they were alive at the time before presumably contradicting you. Well, which is it, so-70s or not-so-70s? And why so defensive? What seems clear from your self-contradiction is that you do think the 1970s were a sexed-up and sexually open decade (I'd agree), but that that is precisely what you didn't like about it then or now (for which I can only pity you) because your own life was apparently very different - defensive, sexless, and soberly uncommunicative, perhaps?

Basically in order to critique this film, and rather than say "I just didn't care for it", you've grossly misrepresented what it's about to the point of trying to get exactly the opposite meaning from it than was intended, and you've revealed some astonishingly unattractive (though not uncommon) facets of yourself. I can't imagine what a film about your life might be called, hey-stella-stella, but I'm pretty certain it could wipe every sleeping pill off the market for good.

[–] sage2112 8 years ago

Your last line got cut off. The one that said something like .... And in spite of all that, how much FUN those times were! Ah the awesome '70s!!

So anyway I filled in that chopped line for ya.

[–] Tommen_Forever 8 years ago

Dumbest part: When she asks her doctor if he would have asked her out for a drink before she was divorced. What the F---? You are ANGRY with your doctor because he doesn't ask married patients out for a drink after giving them a physical?

She had just been divorced after over a decade of marriage. Cut her some f-cking slack.

Dullest part: the long, monotonous session with the therapist when she drones on about 'your feelings are your feelings,' blah, blah, blah. Was that woman on downers?/quote]
You clearly have never spoken with any mental health professionals. The therapist in the film was played by a real therapist, and yes that's how a lot of them talk. This kind of criticism only reveals your immaturity and lack of experience.

[quote]Drinking and pills are the solution to every bad mood

The movie never said that. People who are unhappy tend to drink and take pills. The film presents this accurately, and as the fact that it is. Again, you're conflating reality with promotion because you're naive and don't have an adequate understanding of human behavior.

Picking up a total stranger for anonymous sex is healthy and good instead of sleazy, dangerous and very likely to be totally unsatisfying.

Neither of the men she "picked up" were total strangers. Charlie was a coworker and she met Saul before having sex with him. You're acting like she just found them on the street. As for it being "sleazy," only a stuckup, ultraconservative, prude would make such a judgment. It's just sex. People do it. Pull the dildo out of your ass and stop whining.

Then of course, there's the whole idea that divorce is something that makes people (especially women) stronger and happier, when we know that divorce makes people miserable and they carry around anger and die younger than people who stay married.

The divorce wasn't Erica's idea. Her husband cheated on her and left her. This happens to millions of women (and men). Divorce is a reality, not a fictionalized road to happiness that this film invented. What the film does show, however, is that it's possible to regain happiness after being divorced instead of spending the rest of your life miserable and bitter, which is what you seem to be advocating.

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Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television