Husbands and Wives

R

Released Sep 18, 1992

1 hr. 33 min.

Drama

Comedy

Romance

List

93%

43 Reviews

Tomatometer

87%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Gabe (Woody Allen) and his wife, Judy (Mia Farrow), are shocked to discover that their best friends, Sally (Judy Davis) and Jack (Sydney Pollack), are splitting up. Not only did they not see the breakup coming, but it makes them start to question their own relationship. While Gabe flirts with the idea of dating one of his college students (Juliette Lewis), Sally and Jack discover that being single again isn't all its cracked up to be and contemplate getting back together.

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Critics Consensus

Husbands and Wives is a blistering, emotionally raw snapshot of two marriages self-destructing.

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dave s

From the beginning, Husbands and Wives is unmistakably a Woody Allen film. Gabe and Judy Roth (Allen, Mia Farrow) are a seemingly happy couple who react with shock when their friends, Sally and Jack Simmons (Judy Davis, Sydney Pollack) announce their separation. From this point onwards, the film documents a menagerie of relationships either being established or falling into a state of utter disarray. The four leads are all great, the supporting cast is fantastic, and the dialogue is continually insightful. On the down side. some may find the jarring jump cuts and dizzying handheld camerawork distracting. As well, the narration and character interviews feel unnecessary and tend to disrupt the narrative at times. Despite its possible faults, it's an intelligent, bitter and insightful look at modern relationships. It is also, ironically, the last film that Allen and Farrow appeared in together.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Wow, it really is Woody Allen

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

Full Review

william d

Although Director/Screenwriter Allen employs a "documentary" approach that includes interviews with the main characters he's not really covering any new ground here. We've seen similar musings on marriage and relationships in his previous works. Still, Allen fans and non-fans alike should enjoy this one. The story is good and the characters held my interest throughout.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

steve d

overly dramatic not at all funny and even less interesting.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This is probably the contemporary acme that a movie about marriage and relationship can reach. If you compare it with the break-up in real life at that time and the charge of the #MeToo movement 30 years later, along with quite a few experimental and political elements, a piece of "performance" art has been being unfolded in front of your eyes. The structure of throwing in documentary interviews makes it narratively superior to Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). The ending is fairly punchy and "disclosed": "Can I go? Is this over?"

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The final film produced as a result of the long and fruitful collaboration between writer, director and sometimes actor Woody Allen as his actress muse and romantic partner Mia Farrow. Everybody is aware of the scandal that erupted in 1992 when Allen had an affair with stepdaughter Soon-Yi Previn and was accused of sexually molesting his seven year old adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. A lot of the tension that must have been present in their union can be seen in this film as it follows couples who break up and the Allen character even has a relationship with a much younger woman but fortunately when judged without knowledge of the scandals surrounding it is a very good piece of work. Judy Davis is the real standout and was expected to win an Academy Award for her work in the film but shockingly lost to Marisa Tomei for her work in the decidedly slight Howards End (1992). The seemingly happy married couple, Sally, Judy Davis, and Jack, Sydney Pollack, inform their longtime friends Gabe, Woody Allen, and Judy Roth, Mia Farrow, that they have decided to separate. Roth is deeply hurt by learning this and she begins to fear for her own marriage to Gabe while also being envious of her friend's freedom. Jack has had previous dalliances with prostitutes and almost immediately begins dating younger fitness instructor Sam, Lysette Anthony, while Sally struggles with being single. Gabe serves as a writing teacher and is attracted to his twenty year old student Rain, Juliette Lewis, while he fails to write a new book. Meanwhile Roth has long nursed a crush on coworker Michael, Liam Neeson, but chooses to set him up with the now single and lonely Sally. Michael is infatuated with Roth but she returns to Jack who has becomes disillusioned with Sam while Roth leaves Gabe to marry Michael. Sadly Allen is the weak link in this film as his romance with Rain feels like a retread of his character's relationship with the teenage Tracy in Manhattan (1979) with none of the humor present to soften the ickiness of the age gap. As in Manhattan he ends up alone as a result of his own carelessness but there is none of the poignancy here as we do not feel that Rain is a character grounded in reality and so their affair feels more like the product of a writer's brain than a real life experience. Whenever we cut to the two of them going for a walk and discussing their writing the film grinds to a halt and I wait desperately for Davis to return or Farrow to fret about Neeson behind his back. Sally and Jack's relationship is the most interesting in the film as their struggles seemed normal, she is frigid and he longs to re-experience his own youth through a relationship with a younger woman, and the breakdowns they each experience are so uncomfortable to watch. Davis is brilliant as an uptight but theatrical woman as her discomfort in almost any social situation becomes immediately clear and the relish with which she announces that she enjoys being single is undercut with a touch of melancholy. Jack's breakdown at a party at which his younger rebound begins babbling about astrology to his intellectual friends felt exactly like my experience of every dinner party I have ever been to. Late in the evening when every adult is too drunk there are a few young radicals who start talking nonsense and an older woman who smiles at them with a touch of condescension. Then an unexpected conflict will suddenly flare up and two people will be fighting the backyard and screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. The raw emotion present in this scene was impressive and the fact that it is capped off with Jack inevitably returning to his ex-wife made it all the more real. There is some discomfort in seeing the little digs that Allen makes at Farrow during the film as yet again she plays a woman who loves having children and is so supportive and content that her husband goes looking for drama. The idea that she is ‘passive aggressive' and always gets what she wants is constantly reiterated and in many ways it feels like a justification for his leaving her. This is the sort of thing you get with an autobiographical film and you have to take the good with the bad in the case of this one.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

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Woody Allen

Director

Woody Allen

Prof. Gabriel "Gabe" Roth

Mia Farrow

Judy Roth

Juliette Lewis

Rain

Blythe Danner

Rain's Mother

Judy Davis

Sally

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Anthony Lane

Independent (UK)

It's strange how sour the results can be; Husbands and Wives takes the same kinds of dancing passions that looped through Hannah and her Sisters, and turns them into a crabby-go-round.

Jan 4, 2018

Full Review

Adam Mars-Jones

Independent (UK)

In a sense, Woody Allen lets himself off the hook by having his character hold back from adultery, and even seem the victim of Mia Farrow's character. But this is not a smug movie, and much the better for it.

Nov 16, 2017

Full Review

Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: B

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Away from the real-world ickiness and judged on its own merits, this is one of Allen's most absorbing efforts, with some well-timed laughs breaking up what proves to be a particular bitter pill of a picture.

Rated: 3.5/4

Sep 18, 2021

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

...a hit-and-miss drama that is, for the most part, hardly as interesting or absorbing as Allen has surely intended...

Rated: 2.5/4

May 27, 2021

Full Review

Mattie Lucas

From the Front Row

A shockingly frank look at the dissolution of not just a romantic relationship, but of an artistic partnership.

Rated: 3/4

Jun 3, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

Gabe (Woody Allen) and his wife, Judy (Mia Farrow), are shocked to discover that their best friends, Sally (Judy Davis) and Jack (Sydney Pollack), are splitting up. Not only did they not see the breakup coming, but it makes them start to question their own relationship. While Gabe flirts with the idea of dating one of his college students (Juliette Lewis), Sally and Jack discover that being single again isn't all its cracked up to be and contemplate getting back together.

Director: Woody Allen
Screenwriter: Woody Allen
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 18, 1992, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 12, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA): $9.3M
Sound Mix: Surround

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