Day 168: Another Woman

510CBVA0W0LAnother Woman, Woody’s 17th turn behind the camera, is another film about relationships.

And infidelity.

And awkward, uncomfortable moments.

The movie opens with the shot of the inside of a house, a corridor. Empty.

Then, voice-over narration – this time, from a woman, whom we discover is Marion (Gena Rowlands, 1930- ), a professor of philosophy on sabbatical writing a book. Marion’s apartment butts up against the office of a psychiatrist and she discovers that she can hear the sessions going on next door.

One voice from the psychiatrist’s office – sounds like Mia Farrow to me – causes Marion to listen more intently, and then begin to question her own life’s choices.

The cast is amazing:

Gena Rowlands … Marion
Mia Farrow … Hope
Ian Holm … Ken
Blythe Danner … Lydia
Gene Hackman … Larry
Betty Buckley … Kathy
Martha Plimpton … Laura
John Houseman … Marion’s Father
Sandy Dennis … Claire
David Ogden Stiers … Young Marion’s Father

But this is another very intense film about break-ups and regrets and living lives of quiet desperation, usually with the wrong person, that requires comedy to help balance the pathos.

But there’s no comedy here.

Not even a chuckle or two.

This is straight-ahead drama about regrets, regrets, regrets – interspersed with emotional coldness and suspicion – interrupted only by melancholy and longing. Then more regrets. And an occasional comment about seduction. Which, of course, leads to more regrets.

Some of the soundtrack music is jarring, sounding like an overwrought movie from the 1960s or 1970s.

Oh, did I mention this film is about regrets?

When it’s not about a 50-year-old woman bemoaning her age, it’s about said woman regretting her “cold, cerebral life” – especially after she discovers her husband Ken (Ian Holm, 1931- ) is having an affair with Lydia (Blythe Danner, 1943- ). They split up. The woman walks around thinking. Then returns to her writing.

The last line:

“For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.”

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