I’ve always liked John Cassavetes’s films I’ve seen so far, so with good expectations I started watching his next film from those I haven’t seen yet – Husbands, 1970, and here I experienced some difficulties when watching, the first half of the film I watched with a clear effort, the second one went a little better.
The main characters could be four, as we see in the introductory footage, where we are shown their photos, but alas, one of the friends suddenly died of a heart attack, and the film begins with footage of his very crowded funeral. And then, for a few days, we observe the behavior of the remaining three friends, whom these funerals apparently provoked to completely strange, in my opinion, actions, they are going into all serious things. Of course, I understand that people’s reactions to such events can be different, but it was quite difficult for me to watch how these adults and seemingly perfectly prosperous men behave. I may have this feminine view of things, but I spent most of my life working in a fairly male group, and I often had friends who were men, but I had never seen one. They rage and fight in the street like boys, drink non-stop, arrange a song contest in the pub, where they literally taunt one woman, forcing her to try again and again to sing the song, “as it should” and not the way she sings. Finally, Harry (Ben Gazzara) gets home, where he has a rather fleeting but very aggressive skirmish with his wife, up to a fight, his wife does not want to live with him anymore, despite having three children, and then Harry does not think of anything better than to go to London. Gus (John Cassavetes) and Archie (Peter Falk) travel with him, none of whom have been to London before. There, their imagination is enough only to go to the casino and then, picking up some women, no less strange than themselves, go to the hotel, their behavior with women also looked very ambiguous, perhaps they had not done such things before. After such a night, Gus and Archie decide to return home, and Harry remains in London, his fate is unknown. They seem to be worried about him, asking each other if Harry can manage there alone, because they are friends, but the question remains unanswered.
The film is shot in such a kind of improvisational style of Cassavetis, "as if", because. Cassavetes has always maintained that there is no place for improvisation on his sets, everything is thought out in advance. To be honest, the behavior of these grown men from decent society and something that seems to have achieved in life, because they live in their own homes on Long Island, they do not seem to lack money, they have families and children, but they behave like complete scumbags, sometimes you have doubts about their mental abilities. Or is this what people do when they let go of the brakes that have tied them all their lives? Apparently, Cassavetes wanted to show them that way, but the characters of the film did not inspire sympathy for me, although people who got into such a situation usually want to sympathize. I liked this film much less than his previous films. But many people like the movie, and the audience is different.