John Cassavetes is certainly an interesting director (great actor too, but interesting director). Instead of directing films for entertainment, he directs them to present a "slice-of-life", so to speak, only one that is usually tumultuous and unkind. His movies are generally uphill battles to watch, but they're worth it.
In this film, an over-the-hill man and woman break up and pursue other, younger paramours. While successful, they still have to deal with their own separate pain and fear of many things, amongst them age, loneliness, and friendship.
The writing and the acting are the most important parts. The writing is at times brilliant, the rest of the time brutal. Cassavetes tries for a more realistic, human approach, which means characters go off in tangents, talk unproductively, and are often really mean to each other. The acting complements the dialog so perfectly that one doesn't see actors on screen, but characters; only moreso than characters, one sees people, as if watching a home video with a disturbing and powerful plot.
Cassavetes was also one to specifically not care about structure. This makes the directing, editing, and cinematography rather jarring and condense. Luckily, it works with the themes of this movie well enough that the movie itself maintains a sense of entrapment and abuse.
It's a great film, though it's an uphill battle to watch. It's amazingly written but it's very inaccessible. I'd recommend it, but you must heed that it won't be something you can just sit down and escape into.
--PolarisDiB
