Monday, January 07, 2008
Irreducible Characters
One of the things that struck me while watching “A Woman Under the Influence” (and was even stronger as I reflected back on the film) was the arc of the character development. These characters are slowly unwrapped for us as we see deeper and deeper into their relationship. We first see Nick in a sympathetic light and only slowly realize that he doesn’t know how to deal with Mabel and her condition and only after that do we see how abusive he is. Likewise, our first view of Mabel reveals her to be full of anxiety and probably fragile. With time we see how poorly she can cope with her life and how debilitating her problems are be they the excessive fixation on her kids or her inappropriate intimacy with strangers. I like this gradual development since it keeps you focused on the characters as individual instead of just pigeonholing them as “abusive husband” and “hysterical wife”.
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7 comments:
Yes, I like that about the movie. I think the unwrapping of Nick was a little more gradual, perhaps?
In the first scene Mabel is rushing the kids out to the car and just seems to be in hectic mom mode, then she sits around the house drinking and waiting for Nick, and she seems relatively "normal" then, too, and at the bar you can't really tell if she's unhinged or has just had too much to drink ... it wasn't really until the morning of the spaghetti dinner that I became convinced there was a psychiatric issue. I think the movie wouldn't have been as well-done if we didn't have to guess at Mabel's mental state for awhile.
I totally loved the scene where she was pacing the sidewalk asking the snooty old women for the time because she waiting for the kids to get home from school. And then she hears the bus roaring up behind her and almost launches into acrobatics with excitement. I mean, at that point you pretty much knew she was terribly unbalanced, but you loved her for it, for the sheer energy and exuberance of that life-affirming display.
We first see Nick unsuccessfully pleading with his boss to not have to work an extra shift. So we learn that too much time working has caused problems in his marriage but that he is pushing back and wants to spend more time with his wife. After this we have a few scenes with Mabel and see how anxious she is about sending her kids away with her mom—this could be just lack of trust in her mom’s abilities—and we see that she drinks too much. This is followed by the remarkable episode where she has a probably unintended one-night-stand and it is not clear that in the morning she quite understands that she slept with somebody other than her husband. Whatever we might make of her state of mind at this point, she isn’t robust and ready to stand up to a big challenge.
That is why I was stunned when Nick showed up in the morning with his whole crew of big, dirty, blue-collar work men. What a cad! Could he be so insensitive as to not realize the problem of inflicting this lot on his wife? At the end of this spaghetti-for-breakfast party, he yells sharply at Mabel who was draping herself over one of the men. This leads to an awkward silence in the party, but it is hard to blame Nick for yelling since Mabel was ignoring his pleas to sit down and leave the man alone.
From there we gradually see more and more violence out of Nick. He never seems vicious but increasingly frustrated. It becomes clear that he is incompetent and lacks the social skills and even emotional connection needed to deal with the difficult situations he finds himself in over and over. He devolves into angry thrashings
Yeah, the unraveling of Nick is really intriguing. You summed it up well. He is as hapless and helpless as Mabel is, in a way, and yet he has to maintain this charade of being in control and keeping things together. I thought their relationship with their kids was really touching. They both seemed to have a sense, even if a little twisted, of "we have to look out for these little people and make sure they have some fun."
What did you think of Gena Rowlands' performance?
Somewhere I read that Cassavetes had considered doing this work as a play, but Gena Rowlands told him that Mabel was too demanding a part to do day after day. I cannot imagine trying.
Rowlands’ performance was outstanding. For the film to work, she had to create a believable character that we have some sympathy for but still realize how horrible it would be to be married to her. Hollywood has made several feel-good movies about the mentally ill that are necessarily fake and shallow. The depths of “A Woman Under the Influence” depend on Rowlands.
Comparing Nick and Mabel’s interactions with the kids is interesting. Nick is the guy holding down a job and is presumably the sane, capable of the two. So when Nick realizes that having their mother hospitalized is going to be traumatic for the kids, he rightly decides that he should spend time with them and try to have fun. But look at how he implements the idea: he shows up in the middle of the school day with one of his work buddies and hauls the kids off to the beach. The beach is deserted because it is probably too cold and windy to enjoy. And then, on the drive home, he lets the kids all get drunk.
Yes, I agree. Rowlands was amazing in the role. She understood the character completely. I sometimes forgot I was watching someone act, because often it felt like I was watching a home movie of someone's screwed-up family. She understod that that's exactly what the film needed to feel like. It's hard to believe it was scripted.
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