Considered by diehards to be John Cassavetes‘ final film*, Love Streams was released to acclaim, winning that year’s Golden Bear, and then quickly fell into obscurity. The film, a complex drama about a pair of siblings who have to rely on each other, wasn’t even available on DVD until 2003.

Gena Rowlands stars alongside Cassavetes as a recently divorced wild woman who’s behavior has estranged her from her family. Her performance is wonderful, and matched by that of Cassavetes as a hard-living author, who drinks, loves and smokes with reckless abandon.

“John Cassavetes’ final film, the all too rarely screened and still underappreciated Love Streams, is a movie that gets better with each viewing. Unavailable on DVD, Love Streams is at once a culmination of the director’s obsessions and his most atypical film. It’s a movie that gives up its mysteries slowly—flirting with theatricality, inserting dream sequences, concluding on a brazenly surreal enigma.” Dennis Lim, The Village Voice

Gena Rowlands, considering something weighty

Cassavetes knew he was dying when he was directing Love Streams, making the work — and particularly the closing scene — all the more poignant. The few users at Criticker who’ve seen this agree that it’s a classic… which is why it’s one of our Neglected Gems.

(*Mainstream flick Big Trouble was released later, but was just an attempt to secure financing)