johngriffin0928-640-132858
There are no easy answers in this emotionally devastating film about the breakup of a marriage and its effect not just on a husband and wife but also on their four children.Diane Keaton is perfect. Her Faith Dunlap is human, giving and needy at the same time, loving and practical, fierce and frail, and ultimately indomitable -- all without losing her humanness. She inspires in Albert Finney a performance of the volcanic force that he hadn't given in years. Director Alan Parker and screenwriter Bo Goldman don't shy from laying bare the pain, the frustration, the second-guessing and even some of the joys that result. I have seen this film dozens of times since it came out, and it never fails to affect me.
marsh876
I feel a little embarrassed disliking this movie because all of the other reviewers liked it. I will mention some of the good points. There were occasional beautiful camera shots, but an occasional beautiful camera shot does not a good movie, or in fact, a movie, make. It was delightful to see the main actors in action, they have truly wonderful careers. However: As someone else pointed out, most of the scenes are very claustrophobic. Or cluttered. Perhaps the director was trying to make the audience uncomfortable. Or trying to show how the husband and wife were so stressed out. But the result caused me to greatly dislike most of the movie for just this point. In my opinion, this was the work of a bad, egotistical director. "I don't care what anyone thinks or likes, I'll do it my way." Sure, buddy, do it your way. Your way stinks.Along with cluttered scenes, most of the scenes were loud, screeching, with terrible sound. Again, trying to make the audience uncomfortable? Is this how the couple felt inside, always screeching and yelling and discomfort and pain? That's how I felt watching this movie. Even the ocean sounds were harsh. Also, the childish piano playing grated my nerves. Was this intentional? Or was this a bad sound job? The only way I could watch most of the movie was to turn the sound way low and use subtitles. It wasn't as bad as Catch 22, but bad enough.That the kids were always talking at the same time and the mother always yelling at them was very unrealistic. This observation was from a professional social worker who has made a long career of working with dysfunctional families.The racism and antisemitism was disturbing, with the mother's lawyer. More pie in the face to the audience. I think, with the lack of worthwhile police, prosecutors, judges and lawyers, the idea communicated was that these people didn't live in society, that they could do anything they wanted without consequence. Of course, the ultimate would be murder. Why didn't they cheese up the plot (what little of it there was) with this, then have the father say "sorry", and we're all listening to the Rolling Stones again and laughing and dancing.The lack of police and lack of consequence for violent action was insulting to the audience. The only time a policeman showed up, toward the beginning, the policeman seemed weak and ineffectual. The police weren't called when the several violent scenes occurred. This, and many other scenes, stretches the suspension of belief that movies always require. So, the show becomes a comic book, with one meaningless random scene following another.In another ridiculous scene, the parents are having sex at a hotel with the kids in the next room, and they don't lock the door, so one of their children walks in and sees them in bed. I suppose the kids walked in on them having sex when they were all living together? Isn't that in itself a form of child abuse? Other reviewers say that the father slowly fell apart due to the divorce, till her was nuts at the end. Sure, people go nuts, but this degeneration was too much and too silly. He essentially lost all moral sense. Was he smoking crack? Oh wait, did they have crack then? The movie gave the message that it's OK to yell and cause a fight in a restaurant, OK to beat your daughter with a hanger, OK to break and enter, OK to kidnap, OK to do property damage, OK to beat someone to death or nearly so, and all one has to do is say "sorry", and everyone will forgive and we'll all be buddies. They even make fun of this when the daughter points this out to the father, yet she, the physically abused child, still forgives him in an oh so touching scene, (oh so nauseating scene). The movie gives the message that child abuse is OK because everyone is hunky dory afterwords. No one is willing to take responsibility, in fact, no one can take responsibility. We live in a big comic book where anyone can do anything to anyone else, and it all turns out well in the end.We're left hanging at the end. Does the wife forgive the husband? Does he live? His yet again appeal for forgiveness and compassion after he was the total bastard was again pitiful. The children, including the beaten one, all rush to him. What does a father have to do before the children and wife say enough? Kill all of them and himself? So they don't have to listen to the terrible sound background of the movie anymore? At the end, I wondered, what was the point of having watched this movie? The movie seemed to be a poor man's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Albert Finney certainly was an imitation Richard Burton, and I think he did a good job copying Burton. Diane Keaton kept slipping into her Annie Hall persona. Fortunately, she showed us she could do more in this movie. The constant yelling and emotional violence (and physical violence in this movie) reminded me of Virginia Wolf. But in that movie, there was some sort of reconciliation and understanding of the underlying conflict. As another reviewer pointed out, there was no understanding of the roots of the conflict, just a lot of yelling at each other.
LouisaMay
For me the key to this great film was the scene where Finney and Keaton end up in bed together. In their conversation at this tender but honest moment after their marriage has ended, they wonder aloud what happened to them. He says, "I'm not a kind person." She says, "I'm not kind either." These soft spoken admissions, amid the chaos of the violence, and screaming emotional upheaval woven through the film, provided an answer to what went wrong in the marriage. It's clear they still love each other --the whole film is an illustration of this bond, and he says so to his daughter near the end of the film. But they've run into the mundane problems that eat away at long term marriages without means of overcoming them. What are these means suggested by the film? Kindness and compassion. Neither has kindness toward or compassion for the other. They love their children, and they're "good" people, not immoral. But they have no compassion, not even for their children. Without compunction they say and do things in front of the children that can harm them for life. Neither has any compassion for the other's suffering, or any ability to put themselves in the other's shoes. So at the end (SPOILER) when he lies bloody and beaten with his hand up for comfort from her, she refuses to take his hand, and the camera freezes on this moment.
roscoe1998
I watched this movie with my Mom during my parents divorce when I was 10 years old. After watching it again with my wife, I was brought back rather harshly to a time I would rather forget. I remember saying (when Finney goes crazy and gets his ass kicked at the end) the f word in front of my mother for the first time when I told her.."F#$@ this, I can't take this s%$#." Before that outburst, i had only heard my father use that type of language. The outburst wasn't a reflection of reality as my Dad was a 215 lb. golden gloves champ, but the raw emotion and broken souls that were portrayed was moving now and over a quarter century ago. Enough with my whining. Rent or Buy the movie if you can find it. I was able to watch because my morbid Mother (God love her) still kept a copy. Anyway, the movie was well cast, well written, and one of the most believable, heart wrenching performances (by all actors, especially Sherry) in modern cinema. However, one has to ask him/herself.."If I was Albert Finney, would I cheat on a 1982 version of Diane Keaton?". Then again, Hugh Grant cheated on Liz Hurley.
