Husbands (1970) User Reviews

Hanging Out with Toxic Males

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 6 June 2019]

I don't enjoy John Cassavetes movies that much, but I've watched quite a few of them because of his importance to the development of independent American cinema and because of their uniqueness. I think "Husbands" will be my last Cassavetes film. I've seen it, "A Woman Under the Influence," "Faces," and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," and I feel like I can put him to rest with a thorough knowledge of his style and preoccupations.

What I do like about Cassavetes is that he explored in a way few writers/directors at the time did the complexities of male emotions. His male characters don't fall into easy categories and neither do their interior lives. In what he has his characters say and do, it's like he wanted to present the male id on screen visually, in all its obnoxious glory.

But the flip side is that it makes his characters unpleasant and exhausting to be with. I went out with a bunch of guys for a bachelor party once, and one of them was talking loudly about how ugly and fat a girl was sitting at a nearby table in a bar. He clearly wanted her to hear, and it's like he was performing for the rest of us. The other guys, because they didn't want to be accused of ruining the evening I guess, or because they genuinely found it funny, played along and encouraged him. The whole experience was so uncomfortable and toxic that I left shortly after and didn't go on to do the rest of the things planned for the evening.

Watching "Husbands" is like two hours of that experience. It's watching three guys hang out and desperately try to avoid the emotions stirred up by the recent death of a fourth buddy. This means they fight, get maudlin, get drunk, get abusive, treat women like crap. We don't get to know these guys. We're just dumped into the middle of their circle of friendship and sent off with them into the night to hang out for a couple of hours. I can't relate to Cassavetes movies. I'm the same age as the guys in this movie, maybe even a little older than they're supposed to be, with a wife and kids. I don't understand the contempt and anger they show for the world, for their wives, for each other. They don't live in a world that resembles anything I've directly experienced. And since Cassavetes just observes rather than explains, I don't learn anything about it that might help me understand more. I just get claustrophobic and want to leave the party early. Like every other Cassavetes movie I've seen, this one felt more than anything else like an endurance test.

Grade: B

"Jazz" acting

[Sardony · 8/10 · 20 March 1999]

A Cassavetes film is like good jazz music: both are largely improvisational with the actor/musicians playing off each other. With Cassavetes, a basic written theme is provided and the actors embellish upon it; rhythms, tempos and emotional counterpoint are deftly manipulated. In HUSBANDS, Cassavetes is the bandleader, and Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara prove themselves to be two of the best "jazz actors" ever. HUSBANDS is "a guy film." Women have their "girl films," but here's one for we men (and for women who want to understand men). Cassavetes, Falk and Gazzara play three best friends who have just lost their fourth to a sudden death. The surviving three, all 40-something, run away from their marriages, jobs and other shackles for a few days in search of themselves, meaning, purpose. Along the way, we are intimately exposed to their fears, dreams, passions, disgusts, and their love for each other (expertly depicted male bonding: guys who understand each others' emotions, with masculinity remaining intact). Perhaps no other filmmaker/actor combo than Cassavetes and his "company" of actors have ever succeeded as well at depicting so uncompromisingly life's emotional truth. Mind you, Cassavetes' style and camera paints in broad loose strokes, so be forewarned if you dislike a hand-held shaky camera and sometimes out-of-focus shots as the camera operator tries to follow the improvising actor. But HUSBANDS has far less of this than, say, Cassavetes' FACES. And this is not all a downer film; there's much humor, too, in its sometimes bittersweet mood (for example, the Countess scene: "take your hand off my hand") All in all, and though a little long, a great film; well worth the time.

Good

[Cosmoeticadotcom · 7/10 · 7 June 2012]

John Cassavetes was a filmmaker who made his independent films in two primary modes: brilliant character-driven masterpieces like Faces, The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night, or interesting character-driven mediocrities with 'moments,' like Shadows, A Woman Under The Influence, and Gloria. His 1970 film, Husbands, however, falls somewhere in between. It's nowhere near a great film, for it is poorly edited and, surprisingly, poorly scripted, most of the time. But, there are certain scenes that are not overly long and utterly pointless. And in these scenes lie the seeds for what could have been a brilliant, if not great, film. As it is, though, the 142 minute DVD version of the film, released by Columbia and Sony Pictures, plays out more like the opening scene of the film that came before it, Faces. That film had an opening scene of drunken revelry and misery of the sort never before committed to celluloid. The difference is that it, for all its greatness and minor flaws, ran only about 20 minutes into that film. Now, extend that scene and try to cobble and sustain a film narrative about seven times its length, and the problems with Husbands becomes obvious. It simply needed the touch of a good editor.

Proof of this claim comes, in fact, from the brief final scene of the film where the character played by Cassavetes himself (Gus) returns home after a drunken weekend in London, England, with two other buddies mourning the loss of a fourth pal, to confront his crying daughter and mischievous son in his driveway, as they call on there never seen mom to tell her that daddy is home to take his lumps. This scene is poetic, spare, and filled with realism. By contrast, far too many scenes in Husbands are bloated, overly long, pointless, and prosaic- in the worst sense. The whole film opens with still photos of four fortyish male friends, then cuts to the funeral of one of them, Stu (in the photos portrayed by Cassavetes' wife, Gena Rowlands' real life brother, David Rowlands). Interestingly, the putative main character of the film makes his exit from the film at this point. Another good touch, in fact, is that, save for the wife of Harry (Ben Gazzara)- who works at an advertising agency, in a brief scene of domestic violence, no other wives make an appearance. The two other surviving members of the male quartet are Gus (Cassavetes himself)- a dentist, and Archie (Peter Falk)- profession unknown.

No amount of rewatching can exorcise the screenplay's flaws which make this film merely a good and interesting one, rather than a masterpiece. Far too much testosterone in place of intelligence, and a too easy reliance on melodrama over real drama make the film something that a great film never is: soap operatic. A better editing job would have allowed the film to have been shaped into a coherent whole, rather than an often formless mess. The old maxim about films being made or broken in the editing room seems to have been uttered for films like this. Husbands is one of those films that, in a sense, makes one wish for what could have been, but is good enough that what is can satisfy, at least to a point. Beyond the point, though, the sky is how you make it.

One of Cass' Best!

[shepardjessica · 9/10 · 11 August 2004]

One of Cassavetes 3 best (along with FACES and A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE). Middle-class successful husbands turning 40 are frightened after the death of another good buddy. They carouse, drink, swear, pick up women, fly to London, and basically show their camaraderie while inside they're dying a slow death (especially B. Gazzara). All performances are phenomenal, especially Gazzara, and Jenny Runacre in London gives a lovely nuanced characterization as the woman Cass hooks up with for a night of fun.

Cassavetes was one of our best and sorely underappreciated by most Americans. A real crime! It may seem long (especially the bar scene), but he didn't make ENTERTAINMENT as he so often said. He cared about people and relationships and their frustrations and disappointments. Don't miss this one!

One Of The Most Brilliant Films Of All Time!

[jlabine · 16 May 2001]

John Cassavetes' 1970 masterpiece "Husbands" is by far one of my favourite films of all time! I'm aware that this film divides a lot of fans of John Cassavetes. Some love it, and some loathe it. And to be honest, I can understand both sides. But I find it extremely dramatic, funny, touching, brutal, and thought provoking. Some have complained that it is too long, misogynistic, contrived, pretentious, and badly acted. You're intitled to your opinion, but I don't share it. John Cassavetes' cinema was never to appeal to mass aproval or for enjoyment. It's meant to slap you in the face silly, wrench emotions out, throw you into uneasy laughter, put you ill at ease with an uncomfortable situation, drag out scenarios pass the point of tediousness, get into your skin, get into your brain, and have you walking out of the theatre feeling like you just got off a rollercoaster. If you haven't felt this by the end, then I'm afraid you should ask your designer to input an emotion chip in the android brain of yours. Lots of film directors make great, fun, entertaining, and dramatic films. But few take on the emotional coach role. Cassavetes has you running around nerve ends exposed, doing laps around your own personal plights, guilts, and loves. Maybe I've painted an over the top description of his films, but when I think back on his films, this is what comes to mind. I have a very hard time criticizing his films, because his films abandon typical cinema interpetation. He does not follow cinema rules, therefore I cannot follow typical rules of criticisim. Cassavetes had inserted a heart into celluloid, that burns before the eyes on the cinema screen. The film "Husbands" begins with three middle age males attending the funeral of a fourth friend. We have John Cassavetes (Gus), Peter Falk (Archie), and Ben Gazzara (Harry) returning to the man-child role, as they escape from middle age suburbia on a European bender. The bender includes scenes of drunkeness, singing, basketball, gambling, picking up girls, picking on people, and often making complete asses of themselves. This film is just too thick on topics to have a simple review give it any justice. But I urge everyone to experience his cinema with an open mind, and commitment. John Cassavetes has given us this commitment in making it. He is truly a genius of independent films, and is obviously (in my book) up there with Orson Wells, Francois Truffaut, and Alfred Hitchcock as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Be prepared to not like everything you see, because I don't think he wanted you to. He wanted an emotional reaction that sticks on your brain. I've read that he said "We only have 2 hours to change someones life", and for me...he did! May John Cassavetes live on forever! I give this movie a 10!

Powerful Cast

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 13 September 2014]

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

This film brings together John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk as actors on one screen. No other film has this trio, and here we have it in spades. That alone makes the film worth watching, because the way these guys interact is quite fun to watch.

Critic Jay Cocks wrote, "Husbands may be one of the best movies anyone will ever see. It is certainly the best movie anyone will ever live through." He described it as an important and great film, and as Cassavetes' finest work. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, disliked the film greatly (despite being a Cassavetes fan in general) and Pauline Kael described the movie as "infantile and offensive."

10/10

[desperateliving · 10/10 · 20 November 2004]

There is something cathartic in Cassavetes' films, in how he gives his audience tough love, a kind of love that scrapes off any inessential, false emotion. He loves us enough to show us new things -- he gives us gifts he wants us to use. He is just as much interested in OUR emotional truth as that of his characters, a physical filmmaker who wants us to experience his film bodily, so scenes go on for lengths unseen in a Hollywood film.

It's a common thing to label Cassavetes' films as cinema verite, and while that makes sense in terms of the feeling of spontaneity, Cassavetes' composition is sometimes unparalleled; it is very intelligently used and deserves to be examined. The camera has a vitality of its own -- it is not used as a character, but it is absolutely essential as film (unlike the claims that Cassavetes is uncinematic), weaving in and out, capturing images that gain a new significance, yet are never highlighted or indicated. There is one image of such beauty in the film that it's stayed with me for weeks: after Gazzara tells Cassavetes that he loves him and Falk more than his wife, we see Gazzara's face from the side, just slightly out of focus. Like Bergman, Cassavetes is a poet of the human face. Like Dreyer, his film, and his characters, are utterly sincere. That sincerity can be off-putting to people who prefer a barrier between them and their art, who need a distance. Cassavetes doesn't believe in that.

Watching the film, I was overcome with this feeling, not from the intense emotions of the characters (though that is important) but from the presence of the film itself. You watch it and you realize the truth and the greatness of it, stripped bare of any trickery, any cinematic evil: mockery, stereotypes, clichés, "answers." To call Cassavetes a truthful artist is itself a cliché, but watching this, you're in the presence of genius. Not in the way we normally think of genius, and that's its earth-shattering effect: this is the closest thing to soul on film. It's far too easy and too glib to view this as sledgehammer acting -- there are such subtleties and profound realizations of emotional truth that you will have a hard time watching Dustin Hoffman or men of his ilk after seeing this. (Nick's acting is a sore spot -- showing off for pop.) Very few actors have more to give than these three men.

Nothing in the movie is expected. Every cliché is turned on its head, but it's not merely the opposite of expectation: it's something new. (Where else have you seen a sex scene like THAT?) We hear statements like "don't believe truth!" "from the heart!" "too cute!" The tone of the film changes innumerably, silently. The only dubious aspect of the film is in how we're made to almost root for the husbands as they frolic in England without their wives. If it makes any sense, I think Cassavetes cures himself from any charges of misogyny by bringing out the femininity in his males -- the brotherly love goes so far beyond the accepted roughhousing and backslapping into something so pure, so loving, that it could only be feminine. You begin to understand Cassavetes' code of men in a real, physical way. I can't push it home enough: you FEEL it. 10/10

nope

[treywillwest · 7/10 · 2 August 2016]

I'm tempted to review this as two different movies, not because the film's different acts don't flow into each other naturally, but simply because the first third of the film is, I think, so superior to the rest.

The first forty minutes or so of Husbands (of the shortened version currently available on DVD in the US) is as fine, if not better, than anything else Cassavetes ever made. The funeral sequence and that at the pub with the singing of songs, is brilliant cinema. The shadow of death and loss is palpable, and the sense of drunken overcompensation can be felt by anyone who has ever, well, overcompensated through drinking.

I do not think of Cassavetes as a great visual filmmaker, but some of the compositions in the bar room scene made me think of Rembrandt, with its dark hues giving way to such revealing faces. That these heads are confronted with, what in the composition amount to, disembodied hands makes this seem like Rembrandt in the age of surrealism.

Regrettably, after these magical 40 or so minutes, the film then degenerates into all that I think worst about Cassavetes's oeuvre. The crudest male bonding is celebrated as liberational. Indeed, one of the most grotesque of patriarchal tropes gets wheeled out: the woman who gets abused by a man and then falls in love with her attacker. (That the perpetrator is played by Cassavetes himself makes this seem all the more off-putting.)

The last couple of scenes are a memorably bleak portrayal of American suburbia, but this is compromised by the fact that we are only allowed to identify with the supposedly "put-upon" masters of this world: the white patriarchy.

A depressing, brutal experience

[tomgillespie2002 · 8/10 · 14 May 2013]

There's no doubting the film-making innovation of the pioneer of American independent cinema, John Cassavetes. But if any of his films were to be considered a stain on his CV, it would be Husbands. That is only because his filmography is so highly praised, and Husbands divided the critics between those who hailed it as one of the best films ever made, and those who found the whole experience relentlessly depressing and tediously long. I'm somewhere in the middle, finding the film occasionally dipping into awkward, slightly forced improvisations, while offering some quite distressing and powerful insights into men going through a midlife crisis.

After the death of their friend, three middle-aged men - Harry (Ben Gazzara), Gus (Cassavetes) and Archie (Peter Falk) - find it difficult to cope. We follow them over the course of two days, where they drink heavily, play basketball together, and have a boisterous singing contest with friends and family. After returning home from his binge, Harry is thrown out by his wife, and shortly after announces he is flying to London. Seemingly with nothing better to do, Gus and Archie decide to join him, where they indulge is more drinking, gambling, and womanising. Gus finds himself with a much younger woman named Mary (Jenny Runacre), who is wild and unpredictable.

In the same vein as Faces (1968), Cassavetes adopts a cinema verite style, while taking the story and characters to almost hyper-reality. This is not quite the world we live in, only it feels like it. It's a more extreme world, where everything is just a little bit more depressing and the inhabitants are always loathsome in one way or another. It's as if Cassavetes wants us to take a real look at ourselves, whoever we are, and be repulsed. Harry, Gus and Archie are despicable, taking no second thoughts when committing adultery, and ultimately being loud, angry and disgusting when in the presence of others. They are also empty, devoid of any real emotion, only finding any real solitude in each other's company.

Judging from the title, Cassavetes uses the film to summarise a broad idea as to why men must go through this at some point in their life. The trio are little more than wild children, only with sexual experience, and the camera, as usual, is close, capturing the slightest facial movement, almost to the point of infringement. It's a depressing, brutal experience, where scenes go on for much longer than they should, making us want to get away from these characters. But maybe that's the point, and Cassavetes takes it to the extreme to push his point across. The final scene is certainly worth the wait however, managing to depict a character in one simple close-up as both tragic and pathetic.

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Cinema Omnivore - Husbands (1970) 6.8/10

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 31 August 2021]

"Macho manhood is flagged up in the opening montage, and unwittingly or not, HUSBANDS also shows up a pick-up artist's aggression in the sequences of Gas courting a tall, blonde Londoner Mary Tynan (Runacre, whose discomfiture and snit is vividly teased out by Cassavetes to alarmingly horrendous lucidity), how the manipulation of negging allows a man to have his way with a reluctant woman under his clutches."

read the full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

A plight meant to be painfully frustrating; but does that make it good?

[catherine_stebbins · 4/10 · 22 July 2010]

Cassavettes has a lot to say about men, the way they cling to standard forms of masculinity as a rebellion of their voluntary marriage and the various ways they connect with each other and with women, usually through extended humiliation and embarrassment. Unfortunately, while the director has many intriguing things to say about manhood, they are buried within a two and a half hour film that is intent on being redundant, repetitive, lost and obnoxious. Peter Falk, John Cassavettes and Ben Gazzara star as three friends whose common friend has just died. This throws them into an existential funk consisting of drinking, humiliating women and laughing with one another. All three of them are varying degrees of asshole. Even trying to pick one who has any redeeming qualities is a waste of time.

There is a lot to admire here which makes its failure al the more unfortunate. An extended scene near the beginning which lasts about 20 minutes involving a singing contest and the last part of the film which examines each man's interaction with a women they pick up. Most of the material in between fails to say anything substantial about their plight outside of the fact that they are each desperately lonely and use their lack of identity as an excuse to treat others terribly. This could have been conveyed in half the time. The three actors fill two and a half hours with constant laughter. Husbands tramples on its own potential through its own redundancy and inability to say anything substantial about its three protagonists. Perhaps this was the point but it was not working for me.

A Cassavetes Film Even Experienced Cassavetes Film Watchers Aren't Quite Prepared For

[jzappa · 9/10 · 1 April 2010]

The very first bit of dialogue is the kind of introductory exposition you get and gradually learn the rhythm of from a movie that is testing you. Being a film by John Cassavetes, it shall be one of those films that leaves you unsure of what to think of it at all, except that you were strangely engrossed in many scenes, only not quite like other examples of this sort of movie experience. His sense of pace is epic, but the subjects that fascinate him are granular in scale. Husbands is a Cassavetes film that even experienced Cassavetes film watchers aren't quite prepared for. It is a formalistically rebellious, gravely intimate reflection of the bareness of suburban life, magnified 500%, unpatronizing to and violatingly honest about its anxious, inarticulate sticks in the mud who have no idea what they're feeling while they're undergoing their feelings.

The dialogue is comprised of unfinished thoughts, of knee-jerk shouts, not to mention three actors with egos more massive than the movie's gaps of seeming inertia. The camera just rolls and the microphone just hears. That we're seeing and hearing anything in particular is not as central as the fact that we are indeed looking and listening.

Cassavetes tries so hard to seize and squeeze every possibility of any moments that catch what we all know happens between concept and execution. Moments that don't seem scriptable, that hardly seem describable. When we're with somebody but before anyone's thought of anything to say, or when we are distracted into an unthinking transition, anything impulsive or seemingly without thought. I might even go so far as to say the whole film seems involuntary. And what's more, it is predominantly comprised of Cassavetes' trademark scenes of agonizing discomfort.

The most emboldened stand-out in this film's succession of scenes of that nature is an inordinately long one in which Cassavetes, Gazzara and Falk sit with a table of friends and family in a bar, not a tissue of their body left dry of alcohol, taking random turns singing traditional folk songs, and after awhile---and I mean awhile---one person begins singing, and the three jeer them into silence, then tell her to try again. They jeer her quiet again, and again and again and again until finally, after anyone in her position would still be cooperating, they praise her for finally getting it right. This to me represents what has to be the creative process for actors in a Cassavetes film, especially the Cassavetes film Husbands. There seems to be no frontal lobe left in any actor.

Husbands is described sometimes as a comedy. Well, I don't know if it's a comedy, but is a drama with sporadic moments of strange, seemingly incidental humor. There is an unusually brief scene where Gazzara visits his office and is greeted by an outlandishly goofy colleague. When the three friends are electrified with excitement about going to London, we cut to London, where it's dreary and pouring rain. There doesn't seem to be a way to pinpoint the nature of the movie's tone, or its structure at all. Like I said, it puts you to the test, and the test is to accept the film on its terms. If you do, you can be moved by the nature of its point of view and be open to the nature of your own reactions to it.

What a letdown

[LJMJCollins · 5/10 · 19 June 2017]

I am a fan of Cassavetes. He's never easy. He is fascinating, trenchant, profoundly perceptive. His movies don't allow you to get too comfortable but keep you off balance as you watch the stories unfold in unexpected ways. Repeat viewings of his movies reveal subtle hidden treasures. I have liked every movie of his I have seen, until now.

Husbands has some tremendous, insightful moments in powerful scenes, but these are mired in discouragingly extended sophomoric stretches and a surprising lack of heart. There's more to Cassavetes than this. As I watched this movie I couldn't help wondering if it was filmed by someone who was trying to imitate Cassavetes' style, but not quite making it.

Mid-Life Male Bonding

[Lechuguilla · 4 October 2010]

As a reaction to the death of a close buddy, three middle-age men, all married with kids, go on a wild psychological joyride that includes, among other things, getting drunk, gambling, and hooking up with some prostitutes. Their reaction is, in fact, overreaction to a mid-life crisis, wherein marriage, children, and jobs create the social chains that bind.

The story's basic premise renders an interesting theme. Given some traumatic event, like the death of someone we know, it's natural to grieve and reflect on the choices we've made. We thus gain perspective. But these guys seem oblivious to that process. Their only interest is juvenile self-indulgence of the moment, which creates behavior that is boorish and crude. I could not get interested in them or their drama. Nor did I have any respect for them.

The film's visuals are okay. But the runtime is way too long. A ninety-minute plot would have gotten the point across. Every minute beyond that is superfluous. Some segments are painfully drawn-out, like the one wherein they sit around a table in a bar getting drunk and listening to other people sing silly songs. And the script's dialogue is very talky. Basically, the entire plot can be summarized as three guys getting drunk, vomiting, and talking endlessly about themselves.

Acting is borderline at best. Some scenes encourage improvisation in acting and dialogue. Visuals trend conventional. There are a lot of close-up shots.

"Husbands" tries to be a social commentary on the ties that bind. But the plot and characters are rather awful. Direction and performances trend pretentious and self-conscious. And the whole bloated production seems misguided.

My First Cassavetes-directed Film

[kazjin_ · 9/10 · 23 December 2020]

Probably one of those films that'll get to you more the older you get. Perhaps better put: I see this film getting to me more the older I'll (hopefully) get. Not because of age itself-but because of the experiences that come with it.

Heavy and Intoxicating

[barnessteve-93479 · 9/10 · 1 February 2021]

This film benefits from watching in the cinema...the small screen doesn't do it justice.

Rough watch, still love Cassavetes.

[realalexrice · 9/10 · 8 June 2021]

"I'm gonna go mad!" (x2) ***John Cassavetes smoker laugh***

This movie is dense and a lot of what it has to says is no laughing matter. Despite it being a comedy about "life, death, and freedom" as the tagline suggests, this is your typical Cassavetes vehicle with incredibly dark undertones as the masculinity of the 70's and that Cassavetes himself exuded in the 60's, is challenged with a triple threat of baring performances from the very, very unlikable leads. While extremely easy to write off as glorifying such behavior due to the extreme extended nature of each scene, as in most Cassavetes films after Faces, one should know going in that Cassavetes is deserving of much more credit than that. The extension of each scene past a logical conclusion creates a gorgeous and frustrating portrait of what these three men's friendship with each other does to them, their families, the people they meet, and nearly everything else they do. This is evidenced further by the fact that we're never without at least one of the three for the near 2 and a half hour runtime. As frustrating as it is to watch these characters self-destruct and equate themselves to such pathetic lows, it is undeniably powerful to see such vulnerability in actors like Cassavetes, Falk, and Gazzara who channeled such unique humanity in each of their performances, that you can't fully hate them because of how utterly real the characters become, thanks to the respect of his actors that Cassavetes so clearly and deeply has. (Or you totally could hate them, these guys are real disagreeable)

Cassavetes jumps the shark

[Tgrain · 4/10 · 1 May 2018]

Let me start by saying that Cassavetes is a brilliant director. Only sometimes, brilliance coupled with a bold desire to take risks can end up landing on its derriere, especially if it happens after a success such as 'Faces'. And that is exactly what 'Husbands' does. The story is quite weak, the resolution is obscure, and all we're left with is watching three guys get drunk and being nasty. Who cares? I certainly don't. There's nothing to root for here, nobody to sympathize with. Some will argue that this is simply Cassavetes' style and a pseudo-sequel to 'Faces'. But the lower budget 'Faces', as stretched out and not plot driven as it was, was considerably more effective in how it put across interesting characters and showed a slice of life. 'Husbands' by comparison shows a bunch of aimless characters with dialog that stretches the realms of how most people talk and act.

That's not to say that Husbands doesn't have some interesting moments. For students of Cassavetes technique there are a few good scenes worth attention on their own (one of my favorite is when Cassavetes orders room service). But individual scenes, no matter how well executed, do not a film make. It's very unfortunate because this film had everything going for it: a phenomenal cast, a talented director, great cinematography, and even a suitable dramatic premise. But the desire to get cute with dialog and getting overly absorbed in character psychology comes at cost to saying something substantive. What a shame, this could have been such a great film.

a little over-long but with plenty of insightful, touching moments about the lack of connecting with others

[Quinoa1984 · 8/10 · 5 March 2007]

John Cassavetes has a wonderful yet also curious way of how he deals with his protagonists- not just in Husbands but in elsewhere- that brings to mind someone like Bergman but not at the same time. His characters, to me anyway, seem like they're full of life and vigor and laughs and what may be called braggadocio behavior, but it also is a cover for something missing for them too. Husbands casts its main male characters in the light of what should be a time of mourning, for one of the friends in their tight-knit group that dies suddenly in middle age. We never hear about who this guy was or how much significance he had in specifics to them, but one can just tell the impact it's made on them as they have to hide away- maybe on some kind of "guy" instinct- not to show what they really mean to say or feel. Even when they're drunk, they end up having to put an affront, which can sometimes be pretty amusing and very typical of a New York style of 'hey, whaddaya want from me' communication. But outside the confines of a comfortable marriage and kids, these guys are to one degree or another emotional wrecks. Where Bergman had religion and the margin of death as the backdrop usually used, Cassavetes has the suburban malaise and childish, male camaraderie where having a good time seems to be all there is.

Here, Cassavetes acts as well, and to me his character has one of the most important scenes, if not the most important, in the film dealing with this matter. He, Gus, is with Harry (Ben Gazzara, who got robbed of an Oscar nomination) and Archie (Peter Falk, who is, as usual, Peter Falk), when they decide sort of impulsively to break off of their jobs in the days following their friend's death to go to London. What they're their for isn't totally clear, until they start to hit on women at a ritzy casino. They take back the women to the hotel rooms they've rented, and Gus seems to be having the most fun of all with the woman he sweet talked (which is a nice little scene of charm and sexual interplay with just words), and they tussle around in a bed, with that thin line between joking and seriousness being ebbed every which way. This is in line with other scenes in the film like this, little ones that show Gus's attitudes towards life as being sort of a gas even in the more serious moments. But then Gus and the lady go to a little café the next morning, and she- obviously the more adult one of the two- wants to know straight-out what he really wants from her. He can barely say anything, as he's sort of stopped in his tracks by her serious "I'm serious" talk to him. The kidding subsides, and what's left is that tense sensation that reality of his own lack of expressing himself completely has smacked him right in the face, and getting aggressive only will make it worse.

This tends to be something of a common thread with the other characters, however in different degrees. Gazarra's Harry is probably the most flawed, if one had to pick out flaws out of these totally human characters (no clichés precisely attached), who is so torn from himself that he lashes out at his wife when expecting her to say to him "I love you". You almost can't believe he can treat her this way, but it's how it is, in the Cassavetes world. Falk too is playing a guy who is sort of torn from himself emotionally, only he is somewhat more able to express it, and is more contradictory perhaps than the others. Like with his "liason" with the Asian girl when in London; we think he's really after some sexual contact from all of his asking the women in the casino, like a kid after some candy or something, but once he has this woman (who doesn't speak a word of English) in his reach, and a very intimate reach (in typically intimate Cassavetes long-take close-up) he resists. This is a little more awkward a reaction than with the other characters, but it does keep in with his own thread, even if he is able to express his own complete emotional cluster-f*** following his friend's death.

So, at the core, Cassavetes gives us some memorable characters here, even if his film seems to be lacking the overwhelming feeling of seeing a classic. He has his goals set, sort of, but he also takes some time meandering to get there too, and a great scene may be followed by a sort of sloppily timed scene where the strengths of the script (and I do think, unlike Ebert's assertion, that it was mostly scripted) were brushed aside for the rata-tat-tat improvisation. For example, towards the end when Harry invited the other guys back in for more fun with NEW women that he's brought up, it goes on in a stilted kind of way, like Cassavetes wanted one more scene of these guys in a form of pretend with themselves and those around them. And actually when he does have a fairly amazing set of moments, like in that very long scene when they're at the bar and everyone's taking turns showing how much 'life' they have in singing a particular song, with one woman not reaching their mark of quality, there's some spots that drag too. The fire and creative pull of Cassavetes in his prime as a filmmaker is present, if not the overall urgency and tightness of narrative. It's worth the viewing, though, more-so if you're looking to find one of Cassavetes's films not on DVD, or for a good, 'indie' mid-life crisis drama.

Just Plain Bad

[lakeidamike · 1/10 · 2 January 2010]

I began watching this awful mess on TCM tonight at 9:45 and found myself clicking for something better about 15 minutes into it. In fact, I checked my e-mail while I was watching and found a message from a friend discussing the ancient religious philosopher Pelagius. He wrote: Pelagius was an early advocate of the doctrine of salvation by works, as opposed to the doctrine of salvation by faith.

I immediately declared myself a Pelagian and promised to go to this website and warn others not to watch this movie in order to do a good work--in order to avoid any further suffering that might be endured by anyone who might tempted to watch this train-wreck in the future.

Gazzara, Falk and Cassavettes were good friends, I believe. How they got some studio to finance their time in New York and London is something we'll all never know. The first hour of the movie is dominated by an interminably long scene in a New York City bar that could have only been there to jack-up concessions sales for the theaters back in 1970 that had the nerve to screen this nonsense. They must have been flooding the lobby in droves searching for candy, popcorn or poison with which to kill themselves.

I can't tell you anything about the second hour of the movie, because I didn't have the stomach to watch it through to the end.

Cassavetes, Falk, Gazzara in Film Breakthrough

[silentgpaleo · 6 May 2000]

HUSBANDS is full of unexpected events.

Some of John Cassavetes' films can be hard to watch. OPENING NIGHT is an interesting experiment, top-heavy with subplots. GLORIA was an aborted attempt at a more commercial film. Although Gena Rowlands would kick Sharon Stone's butt if both of their films were compared, the pace to Cassavetes' GLORIA is languid. Not what you'd expect from an action film.

This is, however, one of the Cassavetes' traits: the element of surprise.

There are alot of surprises in HUSBANDS. The film begins with a funeral, as Falk, Gazzara, and Cassavetes put their friend to rest. This event depresses these men, and they go on a drinking binge that seems to last the rest of the movie. There is drinking, carousing, horseplay, sex with female strangers, and a conspicuous tendancy to ignore the wives. These are married men, but until their conscious returns to them, they seem to forget that.

HUSBANDS is what I would term as a humble classic. The main reason why I consider myself a Cassavetes fan is because his films are humble. They are always ambitious, mind you, but I love the choices that Cassavetes makes in his editing, and his casting. Cassavetes allows the actors to explore the characters as they are acting on camera, and sometimes this leaves the rough edges of improvisation showing. He knows how to draw out un-self-conscious performances, and there is sometimes gold mined from this method.

Along with WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, this is my favorite of the films in Cassavetes catalogue. While HUSBANDS is Cassavetes "man" film, I suppose...INFLUENCE could be seen as his "woman" film. But, to be fair, Cassavetes made films about both sexes, and usually quite successfully. If you have heard of Cassavetes and are not familiar with his work, this is a good place to start.

HUSBANDS, in its climaxes and anti-climaxes, ends up feeling more and more like reality as you watch it. There are strange moments, and as I said before many surprises. But these are some of the kinds of moments that make up life: When a friend goes from laughter to tears in moments, when a joke is no longer funny, and becomes more serious than a heart attack. HUSBANDS is about common people, and how uncommon they can sometimes be. There is darkness, and there is light. Watch HUSBANDS to know what I'm talking about.

Draining and dizzying

[allyjack · 8/10 · 1 September 1999]

(WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILER) A draining film about the complicated imprisonment of the male - Falk and Cassavetes both briefly dream of not going back to their lives, then list off their obligations and face the inevitable; Gazzara is last seen amid a strange harem of women singing Dancing In The Dark, which largely sums up what the guys - in a grandstanding, toothlessly aggressive kind of way - have been doing throughout: flexing their muscles in the opening photo montage; egging each other on to sports feats and drinking and boisterousness; yet always somehow inherently sombre and respectable in their buttoned-up black coats - real violence and transgression is beyond them, except as a passing dream. In the London casino, as they play the tables, and when Falk gets into a hand-holding thing with an old woman, it's shot in close-up with the action all off-screen; as their psychic dilemma grows more intense, Cassavetes moves in closer and closer, so that the entire London trip consists of an anonymous series of hotel rooms and the like; bland and reflective of their claustrophobia yet - by virtue of their temporary escape and wild rush of freedom and the artfully contrasting women they meet - strangely exotic. The language and the acting are of course the main thing - the film is a dizzying succession of exchanges, as the men contradict and analyze and goad, always trying to position themselves in the overall landscape, and when they fail compensating with bravado and bluster - the long organized bar singing contest is brilliant, summing up Cassavetes' unique blend of documentary and stylization. Cassavetes appears happy to end the film on a more conventional note of the wanderer returned, but by then the movie's amazing intuitive scope has been well established.

I'm just wild about Harry

[chris-3649 · 10/10 · 27 April 2006]

You can tell what Harry's like just by the way he enters the basketball court. He ain't one for playing. "Where is the warmth?" defines Harry's quest. Archie is the same man in 'Woman Under The Influence'. Literally, like kissing a wet fish. Gus is elusive, always acting, hiding. Harry is open. He is the only one who comes close to being emotionally honest and Archie calls him a "phoney". Perhaps, because he sees how scared Harry is of life. However, London is his triumph. Unlike his two friends Harry is able to let go completely. Gus and Archie become mere courtesans as Harry holds court in his hotel suite...'and the women came to him like horses'. Dancing in the dark...

my favorite breeders

[sissypower · 10/10 · 19 September 1999]

John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara in black tie & tuxes working through their grief of a fourth comrade as HUSBANDS, cavort, cajole, careen through a mid-life terrain of urban streets, subways, bars, gyms, suburban interiors & then to London casinos, rain soaked courts & hotel rooms before returning home to their unseen wives.

Cassavetes knows about transcendence unlocked by death. He sets his will free, those of his characters, and ours when allowed, often to the edge and beyond. I suppose this is why so many viewers & industry folk gave up, or never took the chance to fly. Turbulence scares most of us.

On this flight to emancipation, you just might realize what you thought you needed you forgot to pack; and finally feel the tremendous relief at your destination that you never needed anything much beyond yourself . . . the death of a close one . . .and a couple of intimate friends.

Relax, it's thrilling.

Meandering story of mid-life crisis

[umbrellas2 · 4/10 · 15 June 2019]

The starting premise - the death of a friend triggering a mid-life crisis among three other men - is decent enough, and the actors are talented, but what follows is two hours of incoherent improv with minimal plot. I guess Cassavetes is offering a commentary on the emotional incompetence of the American male, but it's hard to sit through such a meandering, directionless sprawl of a film. I'm also mystified about the billing as 'comedy' - that might be the film's one and only joke.