Region: 1
Video: Enhanced Widescreen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
DVD Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85:1)
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Weight factor: 1 item(s)

Plot Synopsis

John Cassavetes wrote and directed this look at three middle-aged men thrown into a midlife crisis when one of their mutual friends dies. Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter Falk) and Gus (John Cassavetes) attend the funeral of their buddy David Rowlands (Stuart Jackson); all three are starting to feel the pressures of their advancing years, while Harry is having serious problems with his marriage. After the funeral, the three men decide that they need to get away from it all for a while, and they spend the next two days getting drunk, shooting hoops, playing cards, sleeping on the subway, and pretending that they're teenagers again. After 48 hours of irresponsibility, Archie and Gus decide that fun is fun but it's time to go home. But when Harry goes back to his wife, they have a huge argument; Harry storms out and decides to fly to England, persuading Archie and Gus to tag along. They get dressed up, visit a casino, and pick up beautiful women, but while Archie and Gus, as before, look at this as a brief vacation from their lives as loyal husbands and fathers, Harry doesn't want to go home, even though he seems more troubled by his infidelity than do his two friends. Cassavetes' first directorial project after his critical breakthrough with Faces, featuring intense, largely improvised performances by two of his most consistent collaborators, Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk, Husbands was originally released in a cut running 154 minutes, but was trimmed to 138 minutes for general release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Editorial Reviews:

Husbands is a fascinating cinematic exercise, the kind of film that infuriates some, bores many others and utterly captivates a select few. As with many John Cassavetes films, it's a "love it or hate it" experience. Its detractors can point with great justification to its flaws: the film itself is not only overlong, but many individual scenes within it are overlong -- and not by just a few seconds. The improvisational nature of the film means that it lacks narrative cohesiveness, points are made indirectly if at all, and the focus is unclear from one moment to the next. One watches the film and grows increasingly frustrated. But this seems to be exactly what Cassavetes intended. The men he is studying are themselves frustrated. They feel trapped. They want to escape their lives, and not just through a long weekend in London. Cassavetes creates a similar sense of unease in the viewer. Whether this is artistically brilliant or pretentious and sophomoric depends upon the individual viewer. But those who are able to give themselves over to Cassavetes will find Husbands immensely rewarding, an exhausting probe into the psyche of middle-aged, middle class American males circa 1970. Such viewers will leave not with insight but with comprehension of a small corner of American culture. They will also leave with a great appreciation of the acting talents of Cassavetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, whose work here is irreplaceable. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide