Two for the Road

Those only familiar with Albert Finney as a middle-aged supporting player in such films as Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and Big Fish really owe it to themselves to see the English-born actor in his prime as a leading man, and this 1967 romance finds him at his best, paired with the luminous Audrey Hepburn, whose beauty sometimes overshadowed her ability. Dissecting just what makes a marriage work, Stanley Donen's film features Finney and Hepburn as a married couple taking the same trip—from London to the French Riviera—at three different stages of their lives, with various aspects of their relationship explored through continual crosscutting as the movie flashes backward and forward. Hepburn is first a very young and impressionable new bride, then pregnant and anticipating the birth of her first child, and finally—five years into the marriage—a restive spouse just beginning to show boredom. Finney is a slightly stuffy husband who doesn't quite manage the same emotional growth, which of course contributes to his wife's discontent. Still, although he has the less showy role, Finney plays it with such perfect pitch that the viewer never entirely loses sympathy for him. The views on marriage expressed by screenwriter Frederic Raphael are by turns perceptive, amusing, cynical, and even bitter, but Donen (who also does an audio commentary) and the leads—not to mention the glamorous locations—maintain an air of sophistication that makes Two for the Road a continual delight. Boasting an excellent transfer and a brief restoration comparison, this is recommended. (E. Hulse)