Initial critical response to A Woman Under the Influence, was so poor that the film was left without a distributor. As a result Cassavetes founded the Faces Distribution Corporation, which, behind the grandiose name, was little more than himself and one of the film’s stars, Peter Falk, running around telling people whatever it was they needed to hear to get the film released. Having all but invented self-distribution and financing, Cassavetes was a dab hand at these kinds of tactics. On flying to London he was said to have told the BFI of the wild success of his movies back home in order to get them released in the UK. Impossible though it is to imagine in the age of the internet, it worked for both his directorial debut Shadows and A Woman Under the Influence.
Just as his self-distribution tactics were becoming more bold, so too was his filmmaking. Starring Falk as Nick Longhetti and Gena Rowlands as his wife Mabel, A Woman is perhaps the ultimate Cassavetes film. Centred specifically on the mental disintegration of Mabel, his desire to represent the little emotions and moments that make us who were are is realised fully here.
He presents us with a couple so at odds with each other that they do not seem even remotely compatible, let alone capable of raising three kids together. Mabel and Nick are bound by their differences, but not in an ‘opposites attract’ way. Mable is so troubled that she struggles to understand what is required of her and tries constantly to please. Tellingly, she is at her happiest when with her kids, as she is never confused by what they want. Nick, on the other hand, seems intent on going through life trying to select the easiest, or what he perceives to be the easiest, option each time. He is incapable of understanding those around him simply because he doesn’t take the time to do so. As a result he is impulsive and highly volatile. He drinks, he shouts, he hits Mabel. They both want nothing more than to please each other, but for vastly different reasons.
It is evident from the start that Mabel has serious mental health issues, but as the piece unfolds it becomes clear that Nick and indeed most of the characters are in many ways just as damaged. No one seems capable of appreciating the least thing about the next, and Cassavetes’ drama peaks in the instances when glimpses of emotional truth are lost through an inability to communicate. When Mabel asks her father to ’stand up’ for her and he actually gets out of his chair, completely missing the point, Cassavetes gives us a moment of almost unbearable poignancy.
Like his previous work, A Woman is all about the performances. The entire cast, even the children, are nothing less that utterly convincing, and Falk, who was a huge star then thanks to Columbo, is outstanding. That said, it is Rowlands who owns this film, giving a performance that is at once intense, harrowing and profound.
