A Woman Under the Influence

"A Woman Under the Influence" (1974)
Directed by John Cassavetes

When I told my parents I was watching a Cassavetes film for the first time, they made a sympathetic gesture, saying that all of his films are simply long and depressing. And to some degree, I suppose this film is. But it is also an intense and often-fascinating depiction of members of a middle-class family who are pushed to their emotional limits.

We catch the housewife, Mabel (Gena Rowlands), who is married to a city worker named Nick (Peter Falk), beginning to undergo a mental and emotional breakdown. We are never directly told why she is extremely unhappy; at one point, towards the end, Mabel herself says she doesn't know why this has happened to her. But the film drops a number of hints as to why this deterioration occurs. Men frequently treat Mabel terribly – one of Nick's coworkers hugs and kisses her in front of a large group of people, and a doctor, a family friend who is sent to help “treat” her, winks at her all the while having a salacious grin on his face when he first sees her. It is this sexual inequality, which the characters fail to realize, that most likely leads to her unhappiness.

Cassavetes' camera rarely cuts away from the intense situations and provides an unflinching perspective of her deterioration, which is painful to witness. Both Rowlands and Falk give brilliant performances - Rowlands crafts a character that ranges from being completely sympathetic to terrifyingly psychotic while Falk's husband is a fascinating and imperfect character, a working-class man who desperately tries to regain a sense of control in the household. Mabel tries to be “good,” but her efforts toward being friendly to the few people she has a chance to interact with in her home ends up scaring them all away. Nick, in the meantime, arguably goes just as insane as she does. Upset at the way his family has turned out, he becomes furious and occasionally violent towards Mabel, who he eventually sends to a mental institution.

All of these characters are fascinating; none of them are all-bad or all-good. Their temperament changes from scene-to-scene. And even if it feels like Cassavetes goes too far on occasion to make his scenes as depressing as possible, the film is a powerful, devastating work of art whose impact can be felt days after a single viewing.

Rating: 9

First Viewed: 6/11/08
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