Husbands and Wives (1992)

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their marriage.

Director:

Woody Allen

Writer:

Woody Allen

Stars:

Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 12 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Nick Metropolis	...	TV Scientist
Woody Allen	...	Gabe Roth
Mia Farrow	...	Judy Roth
Sydney Pollack	...	Jack
Judy Davis	...	Sally
Jeffrey Kurland	...	Interviewer-Narrator (voice)
Bruce Jay Friedman	...	Peter Styles
Cristi Conaway	...	Shawn Grainger
Timothy Jerome	...	Paul
Rebecca Glenn	...	Gail
Juliette Lewis	...	Rain
Galaxy Craze	...	Harriet
Lysette Anthony	...	Sam
Benno Schmidt	...	Judy's Ex-husband
John Doumanian	...	Hamptons' Party Guest

Storyline

When Jack and Sally announce that they're splitting up, this comes as a shock to their best friends Gabe and Judy. Maybe mostly because they also are drifting apart and are now being made aware of it. So while Jack and Sally try to go on and meet new people, the marriage of Gabe and Judy gets more and more strained, and they begin to find themselves being attracted to other people.

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Plot Keywords:

marriage | divorce | man with glasses | loneliness | cynicism | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and a scene of sexuality

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 September 1992 (USA)

Also Known As:

Maridos y esposas

Filming Locations:

68th Street Playhouse - 1164 3rd Avenue, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$10,555,619 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

TriStar Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR (Mono)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Woody Allen said in an interview that the reason he shot the film the way he did was that he wanted to break the usual rules of filmmaking. He cut scenes right in the middle of dialog, he used hand held cameras for no particular reason and did not care if he showed the side or the back of a performer's head during a scene. Allen said for this reason, he felt this film was one of his best.

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Goofs

Camera truck reflection visible on Sally's jeep as she goes to Paul's place.

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Quotes

[first lines]
TV Scientist: [on TV] Einstein was then celebrating, uh, the seventieth birthday anniversary and there was a colloquium given for him. And he said, "God doesn't play dice with the universe".
Gabe: No. He just plays hide-and-seek.

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Connections

Referenced in Gossip Girl: Ex-Husbands and Wives (2010)

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Soundtracks

"The Song Is You"
(1932)
Written by Jerome Kern (music) & Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics)
Performed by Bernie Leighton

User Reviews

One of my top five favorite Woody flicks

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.