A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

Directed by

John Cassavetes

Genre

drama film, art film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h 35m

Rated

R

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 563 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A housewife's unusual behavior creates tension with her blue-collar husband and family. The film uses a highly naturalistic style to show the conflict and emotional strain within this working-class family.

rawintimateemotionally intensenaturalisticunsettlinguncomfortablevisceralmelancholic

What happens

A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes, and starring his wife Gena Rowlands and close friend Peter Falk. Rowlands plays a housewife whose unusual behavior leads to conflict with her blue-collar husband (Falk) and family. The film was Cassavetes' seventh as director, and was produced and distributed independently of major studios like most of his other films. The movie exhibits a highly naturalistic style in acting and camerawork compared to most Hollywood films from the era. It premiered at the 1974 New York Film Festival, before going into wide theatrical release on November 18, 1974. It received two Academy Award nominations: for Best Director and Best Actress (for Rowlands). Rowlands won a Golden Globe Award and National Board of Review Award for her performance. Since its release, the film has been regarded as Cassavetes' magnum opus, with Rowlands' performance often being cited as one of the best of all time. In 1990, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", being one of the first fifty films to be listed. The film featured in Sight and Sound's 2012 list of the greatest films of all time on both critics and directors polls. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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