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To me, this movie is perfection.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy Roth (Mia Farrow) are shocked when their couple friends Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis) announce that they're splitting up. Jack has a young girlfriend Sam (Lysette Anthony). Judy convinces Sally to go out with her colleague Michael Gates (Liam Neeson). Judy is actually attracted to him. Jack gets jealous of Michael and breaks up with Sam. Meanwhile Gabe develops a close relationship with one of his students Rain (Juliette Lewis). She's a free spirit and they are on the edge of something inappropriate.Woody Allen is doing this in shaky documentary style including an unseen filmmaker interviewing the characters. It adds something compelling to these stories. The characters jump out of the screen. It's a fascinating look at relationships and secret desires. Nothing is ever as good as these people want or pine for.

Gabe (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow) have invited their good friends Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis) for a small dinner at their quaint Manhattan apartment. Their abode is full of books and knickknacks all pointing to a comfortable urbanite life in the largest city in the world. Then Jack and Sally reveal some surprising news…after years of seemingly happy marriage, the two have agreed to a separation and eventual divorce. After that bomb is dropped the two couples reexamine their relationships with each other, trying to find meaning in romances both current and past while discovering the good, the bad and the ugly in marriage.Woody Allen is mostly known for his comedies. But while Husbands and Wives has some pretty spot on observational humor, the story is largely somber and dramatic. Not dramatic in the sense of a Wednesday afternoon soap opera but a benign drama that with a few spikes of activity focuses mostly on the characters. There is no clever high concept or narrative liberties here like say, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985); the film is more straight-laced and character driven along the lines of Interiors (1978) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).And what of the characters or rather the actors who flesh them out? Judy Davis, Mia Farrow and Juliette Lewis are the obvious standouts, representing three very different women all of which are looking for the same thing; someone to love and someone to love them back. Davis received an Oscar nomination for her role as a bitter divorcée trying to come to terms with her ex-husband's infidelity and being single again. She's continually frustrated and confused by the yearnings of the heart occasionally even lashing out on her boyfriend Gates (Liam Neeson). She's cynical and wary of attachment yet deep down she knows that her entanglements with Jack aren't over.Mia Farrow is a stark counterpoint to Diane Keaton's brassy personalities of Allen's earlier work. Farrow's intensity lies always below the surface, providing the perked looks and mousiness of a young ingénue with the mind and body language of a veteran in the trials of love. It's a shame that out of the twelve Woody Allen films she has been in (for which Husbands and Wives was most famously her last) she had never received recognition by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her stellar work.Juliette Lewis who plays one of Gabe's young students from his Literature course, has the appearance and vulnerability of a dewy-eyed devotee. Yet when the amiable Gabe discovers he might be the object of desire here and Lewis's Rain the controller, he recoils. There's a scene where the two are in a cab discussing the latest draft of his book. Unable to take criticism, Gabe calls Rain a 20-year-old twit and says "I'd hate to be your boyfriend, he must go through hell." Rain cavalierly responds "Well, I'm worth it."Those who bemoan Allen's post-Annie Hall (1977) work won't find relief from his more meditative works of the 1980's. While most of the characters are likable they sometimes do unlikeable things, each on their own journey of discovery. I suppose we all do things we regret for love and those with a mature outlook on the subject matter will find a lot to enjoy and a lot to flinch at in Husbands and Wives. I suppose the heart wants what the heart wants.http://www.theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com

Apologetically Woody Allen and I went to the very same High school with a 15 year difference I must say another Woody Allen Celebration of the once great liberal Corporate capitalist society's middle class lifestyle and the objectification the human experiences of sex and living.Sorry I am not the biggest of fans though respectfully one can suppose they should be grateful for subject matter that would be better detailed in a book rather than in the shorthand form of popular film and cinema in what is not always relevant to everyone. Woody Allen films though of a interesting nature and good quality seemingly often presents a one sided view of what is essentially existential liberal and intellectual as if his life revolves around what exists in a Cocoon. These films are not Robert De Niro Raging Bull. Woody Allen perhaps Woody Allen closest to Dustin Hoffman in many ways is distinguished as even more insular where I would wish he broke out of his mold that is unique to him as a stylized artist who seems to have stopped expanding beyond what he has already done in his career.This title Husbands and Wives lives up to its title but it fails to expand beyond that subject matter 26 minutes into the film in its predictable formulaic nature which though thoughtful and provocative in that sense neither present entertainment nor any intellectual breakthrough in the sphere of the middle class life style.I want and demand significance and though this film is interesting but in that it fails to provide what "I want and demand significance" I am disappointed. This is not the three stooges nor peter Boyle. This is exclusively Woody Allen where I presume his productions are the products of his cloistered environment which means nothing to me except the world is pathetically mundane which would need to produce the dynamics of the working and under classes if there was no "working and under classes" that are sorely lacking in Woody Allen films.So 35 minutes into the film and I am still bored as the dynamics are insular subjective of a personal nature that seems to be lacking a social element similar in nature to Jane Austen but lacking the blunt social dynamics life is so full of.

I only began to appreciate the greatness of this film upon my second viewing. Only then did I really take it all in and appreciate just how unflinching, superbly intricate and accurate this portrayal of relationships truly is. It really is a testament to the life experience of Woody Allen to be able to write something so deeply observed and then be able to direct this vision so it plays out with such normality.It explores all the love and heartbreak elements of relationships I can bring to mind. The individual interviews are an extremely effective way of vividly revealing the thoughts that we all have about these human relationships. They capture so many thoughts around monogamy, insecurity, honesty, anger, capriciousness, philosophy, social etiquette/acceptance, courage, fantasy.. I could go on. It flips the whole wishy-washy notion of 'love' on it's head to instead really examine the practical nitty gritty of everyday life as a couple. It's also interesting to see just how these interplay affects these people of different ages.It's one of those rare films you can watch several times. I've seen many Woody Allen films and this is definitely in the top 3 for me.