Husbands and Wives

Once you get past the Art Imitates Life factor (Woody Allen and Mia Farrow starring in a movie in which their marriage dissolves and Allen's character is attracted to a much younger student just as Woody Allen and Mia Farrow split up in real life and Allen is attracted to Farrow's much younger adopted daughter--leading to one of the strangest and ugliest media circuses at the end of the millennium), 1992's Husbands and Wives is, quite simply, one of Woody Allen's best films. A portrait of two couples--Allen and Farrow and Sidney Pollack and (the brilliant) Judy Davis--whose lives spiral out of control when Pollack/Davis decide to separate and see other people, and Allen/Farrow fantasize about life off the marital leash, flirting with Liam Neeson (in Farrow's case) and Juliette Lewis (in Allen's case)--the film is built around intertwined flashbacks and interview segments as the principals reflect on what the hell happened to them when the madness of the mid-life crisis grabbed them by the short hairs. By turns hilarious, caustic, painful, and worldly wise, Husbands and Wives was also cinematically bold, employing shaky handheld camera and disjointed edits long before they became a cliché in mainstream film. Featuring both full frame and widescreen versions, this unfortunately extra-less disc is nevertheless one of the milestones in Woody Allen's prolific career and is highly recommended. (R. Pitman)