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Just what I expected

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Two seemingly separate stories intertwine together in the saga of brother and sister who are living on the last strands of reality. Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes, a real life married couple, are parts of their own states of confusion, pretending to be things that they are not. Rowlands, in the process of a miserable separation from a miserable marriage, ends up at the home of her writer brother (Cassavettes), turning his life further upside down while continuing to head on her own downswing. He's a miserably unhappy Playboy and she's so determined to be happy that everyone around her ends up miserable as a result. In short, their lives, separated by different problems, shouldn't align at this point in their lives.Such amazing performances are given in a film that is at alternate points deeply depressing, often confusing, infrequently funny and often maddening. Rowlands briefly gets to meet Cassavette's son from a brief marriage and doesn't even use the phrase "aunt". In Cassavettes films, it is often impossible to tell what is reality and what is in the character's kinds. These are two extremely damaged people who are often living life in a world turned upside down, and their realities are not of any sensible existence.Some of the oddities here include Cassavettes' involvement with scores of obvious call girls and presence at a party where he encounters several female impersonators who question his sexuality, Rowland's bowling trip and purchase of some exotic pets, and most bizarrely, her dream of her ex-husband and daughter in a ballet setting. In spite of this parallel universe where their minds reside, I found that I could not take my eyes of it although I did find that I needed a break from it 3/4 through to regain my own sense of reality.

Love Streams feels like the last in an unofficial trilogy of films where Gena Rowlands played "women under the influence" for Cassavetes. Like in A Woman Under the Influence she plays a woman who appears to love too much and feel too intensely, which alienates her from her family. As with Opening Night Cassavetes departs further from his naturalistic , hanheld camera style and he gives us a view of the inside workings of his protagonists mind. We see things only Rowlands' characters see. Unlike with the two earlier films, here gets a kindred spirit in Cassavetes' equally troubled character.For the first half the film cuts back and forth between two protagonists, one a womanising, insomniac alcoholic writer, the other a just divorced mother with mental health issues. Having lost custody of her daughter, she returns from a manic jaunt round Europe. Cassavetes and Rowlands characters meet an hour into the film (the nature or their relationship doesn't become clear till later) and they both increasingly lose control, till it all ends with a small menagerie of animals and a surreal musical sequence worthy of David Lynch.Absolutely amazing and never miserable as it's also darkly funny and ultimately a strangely hopeful film. A sequence where Cassavetes' absent father is asked to look after his eight year old son for a day by one of his ex-wives, gets the kid drunk and takes him to Vegas is an appalling, yet wickedly funny depiction of truly terrible parenting.Rowlands is one of the greatest of all screen actors and she is still criminally underrated. She played emotionally/mentally vulnerable women without a shred of sentimentality or self-pity. There is a defiant toughness to her characters which makes her as electrifying as Brando at his best. Despite playing several characters with mental health issues for Cassavetes, she never allowed herself to come across as victimised. Awards voters love an obvious victim turn, so this may be why she's never been properly recognised by the Academy. Here she plays a woman who loves too much, which becomes too much to deal with for everyone but Cassavetes' equally damaged character. With an actress who would have made less interesting choicest, this could have come off as maudlin but Rowlands' performance undermines any emotional vanity or sign-posting. She never tells you how you should feel about her characters, which is what makes her so compelling.Cassavetes too gives a fantastic performance. The characters in his films feel so alive and unpredictable, there is constant tension, it feels like anything could happen. Cassavetes, the godfather of the American indie film, at this point had abandoned the cinema verite style he had basically invented. The film has a dreamlike quality, features a shape shifting dog and ends with a mini-opera.

Robert Harmon (John Cassavetes) is a drunken irresponsible womanizer writer. His sister Sarah Lawson (Gena Rowlands) is getting a divorce. She's unstable and obsessed with going to funerals or visiting the sick. Her daughter has had enough and choose to live with the father. Robert's ex-wife surprises him with his 8-years old son but he is ill equipped to take of the boy. Sarah shows up as the the siblings struggle to fix their shortcomings.At first, I find Sarah's divorce fascinating but Robert is horribly annoying. He's a drunken douche. The rest of the movie has some interesting scenes but a lot of meandering naturalistic wanderings. I'm not a big fan of Cassavetes but I always enjoy me some Gena Rowlands.

I have watched this movie many times over the years. As with all of Cassavetes movies, repeated viewing improves it. This is a good solid effort with a great final image of Cassavetes waving goodbye (both to Sarah & to us). - An interesting character study of a brother & sister. Nothing actually gets resolved during the course of the movie. We just get to watch these two characters for awhile. Both characters are just as messed up at the end as they were at the start.As much as I like the movie, I wouldn't go overboard raving about it. I recognize that it isn't perfect. I think that the opera dream sequence at the end of the picture is kind of annoying. However, on the positive side, it avoids including the bad acting that mar some of Cassavetes other movies.