evening1 Three buddies going way back adjust to the sudden death, by heart attack, of a fourth, and it ain't pretty. "People die of tensions -- that's all they die of," opines the earthy character played by Peter Falk, and we wish to hear more of his speaking from the heart. However, members of this macho, posturing triumverate hardly mention their departed friend at all. Instead, we observe all manner of acting out, from drinking too much, yelling at each other and at women, acting impulsively, throwing money around, and being unpredictable. "At 27, men realize they are not going to be a professional athlete," one of the buddies says along the way. "You reach 30 and realize it's over." Er, OK. For the rest of the movie, we watch these boy-men try to forget that time stops for no tide. Many of the principals and tangential characters giggle uncontrollably -- not that anything is very funny here -- and one wonders if usually creative director John Cassavetes, famous for his cinema-verite style of filmmaking, is stalling for time, trying to figure out what should come next. The three main characters, played by Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, and Falk, look a lot alike, especially at the beginning, and it's hard for a while to keep the characters straight. One thing is clear, though, and that is that the men are lost, lost, lost. On the outside they look like professionally successful family men. At a closer glance, we see that they are deeply alienated, and completely incapable of having an authentic interaction with another human being. The unseen tragedy of their friend's passing causes them to question everything -- to the point of going to bed with none-too-appealing strangers in London -- and when the shock subsides, things go back almost to the way they were before. A pretty sorry picture of American domesticity.

Tgrain 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.

jzappa 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.

rookshowlin ...along with The Bicycle Thief and the rest of Cassavetes and maybe Decalogue and Harold and Maude and A Time For Drunken Horses and some Bela Tarr (Eightie's "trilogy") and The Celebration and Tender Mercies and you can keep all your Kubrick and other tricksters and pseudo-Hitchcocks (particularly nick, the "chubby, two-faced one"), boys and gals, because there's not enough heart in 'em (Ben Gazzara in Husbands: "From the heart!... From the heart!...)... and, well, on and on and on, but not for too much longer... because that would imply there are that many good films out there... anyway, okay, i would want to grab so many if i had to run and not walk to someplace better (if there is anywhere truly better than another these days, as you can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody that's either stealing your grill or at least pissing on your coals in this oh so modern world, oh boy, show me your toys!...), say E Street, or perhaps Northern Ireland (if Joyce comes to her senses and stops hating herself so much that she hurts me and Linnea has some time to spare with me and her French fiancé doesn't get all froggy)... BUT i would absolutely take this movie with me, always, wherever i go. and if Criterion doesn't release all the versions of this film soon I am going to literally explode like a Spinal Tap drummer (i might take that one, too, that's why i bring it up so "sophomorically")... HUSBANDS. "a masterful work of art, i think," said Seymour Cassel - but i don't need to say "i think."