Husbands and Wives

When Sally (Davis) and Jack (Pollack) announce their amicable break-up, their friends Gabe and Judy (Allen and Farrow) start looking at their own marriage more critically. Do they keep secrets from each other? Why have they never had kids? Would Lit lecturer Gabe follow Jack's example and fall for a woman half his age - student Rain (Lewis), for example? Why is Judy so keen to get the highly-strung Sally together with her eligible colleague, the very romantic Michael (Neeson)? To put it another way, what is this thing called love? So vividly drawn are all the characters that one becomes wholly caught up in their tangled whirl of emotional/psychological confusion: though not consistently hilarious, the film is engrossing from start to finish. If the use of hand-held camera is occasionally overdone, Allen's decision to shoot and structure his study of mid-life crisis in the style of fly-on-the-wall documentary pays dividends. With excellent performances (Davis and Pollack in particular), it's his finest film since Hannah and Her Sisters.