A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
How this unfolds at first was really intriguing in the “what the hell is going on”-manner. Gena Rowlands gives it all as a woman slightly on the edge of loosing, until she ultimately falls over. This is very much an “actors”-film, very raw and naturalistic style with handheld camera. It makes everything authentic and while the narrative goes very slowly, the underlying social critique is hard not to miss. We have both the husband sort of trying to keep up appearances, and not really wanting to acknowledge the whole affair, and institutions not really able to help her. In many ways it is a depiction of failure on many levels. The tragedy is of course that clearly the kids just wants their mothers love, and the father isn’t exactly providing much of that with his misguided attempts at dealing with the situation. That said, I did think the film was somewhat too long and not very engaging, as it plays its cards early on so to speak, and I felt it never moved much beyond that.
Rating: 3