A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

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Peter Falk is a blue collar man trying to deal with his wife's mental instability. He fights to keep a semblance of normality in the face of her bizarre behavior, but when her actions affect their children, he has her committed. (imdb)

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Directed By: John Cassavetes

Written By: John Cassavetes

Starring: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Fred Draper, Matthew Laborteaux, Lady Rowlands, Katherine Cassavetes

Genre: Drama

Country: USA

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A Woman Under the Influence belongs to 80 collections

1. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by kozan26 - 234 stars)

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9. National Film Registry (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 30 stars)

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46. Films listed as Harmony Korine's favorites. (public: karamazov. - 2 stars)

47. Taschen 100 All-time favorites movies (collaborative: moderated by hristos - 1 star)

48. Village Voice Critics Poll: 100 Best Films of the 20th Century (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 1 star)

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All Ratings | With Reviews

Order by:

TCI | Percentile | Date Rated | # Stars (Reviews)

Stars	User	Rating
15	MartinTeller	100 _99th
One of my very favorites. Gena Rowlands is amazing in her performance, and Peter Falk is excellent too. Heartbreaking, fascinating, frustrating, and thought-provoking. Very real. I can relate to Nick and Mabel and understand them completely, and yet still want to smack them both at times. An incredibly rich, though constantly painful and emotionally draining, experience.
11	Alex Watkins	5 _91st
One of the most intense portrayals of marriage and mental illness around. The two lead performances are incredible, especially Rowlands, who gives one of the greatest performances ever. The movie is as involving and captivating as any romance I've seen, on a level with Scenes from a Marriage. You come to know the characters so well that you root for them while at the same time being infuriated by their erratic and sometimes hurtful behavior.
7	Moribunny	100 _99th
I like everything Cassavetes does, but here he totally outdid himself. It's still unmistakably his personal brand of cinema verite, yet in a way it's the most traditionally cinematic Cassavetes I've seen, and that's not a bad thing. This is one of the most nuanced and emotionally intense dramas I've ever seen, and Gena Rowlands gives the performance of her life. She's simply spectacular.
6	Nathan S	5 _93rd
Effective realism is more than vérité. It's a depth of messy feeling, something difficult to summarize in short. Have you ever seen a more heart-rending performance than what Gena Rowlands gives here? Can we reconcile sympathy for Falk's abusive outbursts? It's so difficult to watch - and yet so easy to understand - the utter gulf of communication between two people who nevertheless regard each other with complete sincerity.
6	purgatos	96 _97th
Rowlands is absolutely magnificent and Falk puts in a barely lesser performance. The supporting cast is also convincing, particularly impressive with the kids who always seem so natural. The camerawork is great, it always serves to heighten the mood of any scene. It all comes together to feel so raw, so real. I felt uncomfortable watching it at times because it seemed like I was closing in too much on these peoples lives. Incredibly well done.
6	billkerwin	97 _97th
The major reason this movie is so good is the absolutely astonishing performance of Gena Rowlands as a working class woman going mad. She radiates charm and sensitivity, yet her oddness is so manifest and her pain so palpable, that she fills us simultaneously with pity and unease. Peter Falk is excellent too, showing love, concern and a complete lack of understanding. Well directed by Cassavetes, with great camera set-ups and movement, and a more disciplined approach to editing than usual.
6	Noblet	97 _99th
One of the most emotionally tense and draining films I've ever seen. It's a very uncomfortable experience since it feels so real. Every character is perfectly portrayed, even the children and minor characters are convincing. Falk and Rowlands are the highlight, with some of the very best acting I've ever seen in any movie. I liked that the movie didn't build tension, it pretty much starts at maximum volume and never lets up.
5	Magb	95 _94th
Very impressive. Excellent performances from Rowlands and Falk, an almost equally good supporting cast, interesting characters, dynamic and innovative camera work, very well written dialogue, and, above all else, what has to be one of the most brutally honest depictions of mental illness in any movie ever. Virtually flawless in every respect.
5	doctor7	93 _96th
Incredible film that melds realistic and formalist film techniques with such skill the film feels almost like a documentary because it so real and captivating. It's an excellent example of show instead of tell as nothing is spoon-fed to the audience. In order to understand the characters you have to pay attention to every sentence, every facial expression and physical movement. Superb but wholly depressing film.
5	PeaceAnarchy	93 _98th
The characters are incredibly frustrating to watch but that's only because Rowlands plays a nervous, slightly crazy woman and the movie revolves around the other characters trying to deal with her. Everyone in the film is incredibly human and both Falk and Rowlands do amazing things with their roles. It's an open ended film in that you can come to a lot of conclusions about who if anyone is right at any point in it, which in a way probably reflects the reality of these situations.
5	Cinema_Asia	90 _96th
I never knew Peter Falk could really act until I saw this film. A lot has been said already about Rowlands but Falk is equally as good as the insecure angry blue collar husband who doesn't know how to handle his ill wife or family. This is a fascinating portrait of dealing with a dysfunctional person while trying to tend to a normal life. The acting here is top notch and naturalistic. There were times I was actually uncomfortable because it felt too real.
4	Bown	99 _99th
Incredible. A wonderful portrait of two people, expertly acted, and incredibly dense and subtle - it's not even been half an hour and I've changed my thoughts about twenty times. Rowlands is fantastic - like a female Kinski in the way you're always drawn to what she's doing even when she's not the focus. Utterly draining, but a very true account of men and women and their roles in society. One of the absolute best films I've ever seen.
3	CCLZA	95 _98th
Naturalistic, disturbing tale about a woman's descent into madness. Cassavettes creates tension with his use of camera and Rowlands is in top form, as usual.
3	KasperL	80 _86th
Mabel is a unique character, and the incredible, frightening Rowlands ensures that we believe her and pity her. A key condition for Cassavetes to draw out this caliber of realistic and forceful effort is, I'm sure, his prediliction for improv'. But shooting this way has its shortcomings also, as the film often feels too loosely plotted, with several scenes continuing for longer than need be.
3	BillyShears	95 _96th
So this was the movie before Princess Bride.
3	FrederikA	50 _33rd
As a film-historical curiosity its an ok watch, if you can stand the excruciatingly long running time and the forced drama. Biggest problems are the conflicts throughout the film, that come out of nowhere, for the sole purpose of having actors shout at each other for a while, 'till the conflict resolves itself for no apparent reason... The acting is almost schizophrenic, going from great to ham in sometimes seconds...
3	karamazov.	80 _97th
In some weird, backwards way, kind of Cassavetes' "Inland Empire," in that it seems like his entire aesthetic in pure distillate form. The editor's hand is simultaneously predominant and completely absent; the eye [sry] of the camera follows Rowlands' beautiful, over-the-top performance unblinkingly, so I can totally get why people find its putative 'realism' convincing-- the reality, of course, though, is that we -are- experiencing an edited, beautifully contrived, entirely -cinematic- reality.
3	Josh Forrest	90 _98th
Perhaps the greatest film about spaghetti.
2	Peppersteak	97 _85th
Mabel, a wife and mother, is loved by her husband Nick but her madness proves to be a problem in the marriage. The film transpires to a positive role of madness in the family, challenging conventional representations of madness in cinema.
2	stillfuchsia	90 _93rd
Rowlands is simply amazing.
2	AFlickering	7 _95th
normal talk. conversation. weather. "how are you?" "where you been?" "hello." "too hot." "too cold."
2	JooJoo	6 _95th
All a woman needs is a slap in the face every now-and-then and they'll work like a charm [maybe].
2	frederic_g54	7 _57th
Lots of hormones flying around in this well acted/directed experimental "film" whose characters I despised and wanted to slap in the face. Need a rewatch...
2	Mentaculus	97 _97th
Completely enthralling and deceptively simple tale of a woman drawn to madness, guided by suburban claustrophobia. What makes it more frightening for me is how similar Rowlands is to my own mother!!
2	Dean Franz	15 _15th
What happens when you let the actors take over a movie and cut out the editor. Overwrought, selfindulgent character study which has served as a holy grail for pretentious filmschool-types everywhere.
2	Judge Holden	10 _99th
Will you stand up for me? No, sit down.
2	Tds4a	3 _80th
I felt horribly claustrophobic and depressed throughout.
2	bof	90 _97th
Intense and unrelenting for 2 1/2 hours. Rowlands is incredible, and I had no idea Peter Falk could do this sort of thing. Their lives have handed them a script, and when they can't live up to it, they try to stick to it even harder. "She's not crazy. She cooks and cleans and takes care of the kids." Watch the parents. Watch the kids.
2	futurememory	85 _82nd
An insightful and disturbing look into an extremely dysfunctional family. One of the best looks at mental illness, control, and influence in the domestic sphere.
2	hotsake	54 _41st
Everyone always says that Cassavetes films in general and this film in perticular feature realistic and/or naturalistic performance but I never found that to be the case. I find the dialogue atrocious and the acting stilted and uneven and completely unrealistic. No one I know acts or talks like they do in this movie even the people I know that are in similar situations. Even tho it was over long and boring in some parts it is worth watching.
2	pyrosexual	83 _74th
Gena Rowlands: Too Much Woman for Columbo
1	Pickpocket	2 _21st
This film is a perfect example of why an editor is so important to a film. You could've cut nearly every scene of this and it would've had the same stupid impact. This film consists of: Peter Falk yelling threats at everyone, horrible cinematography and writing, and Rowlands giving one of the most over the top, ridiculous performances I've ever seen. It's one of these films that you have to say you like to seem intelligent but it's just not that interesting. Seriously, fuck this film
1	Derekstar	80 _68th
This is what bipolarism looks like. This is the only film I've ever seen get it right. I was not as enamored with the second half of this film as I was with the pre-institutionalization half. I thought it dragged on a bit, and I found the dinner party ending a bit unsatisfactory. But that's picking nits. The first half of this film is damned near perfect. Is there a "best films about mental health" list out there? There should be, if only to accommodate this film.
1	Bojangles	75 _85th
A pungent evocation of 70's culture achieved predominantly through denim jackets. A comically frightening portrait of descent into madness. And a solid blueprint for planting the seeds of schizophrenia in children. Continually pull them apart in opposing directions, and send them to bed emotionally drained where they can drift away to sleep in a state perfect confusion. "I'll kill you." ... "I love you." Kids do what their parents did. Gena Rowlands: superlative, of course.
1	Suture Self	8 _81st
"Our society does not wish to recognize itself in the ill individual whom it rejects or locks up; as it diagnoses the illness, it excludes the patient. The analyses of our psychologists and sociologists, which turn the patient into a deviant and which seek the origin of the morbid in the abnormal, are, therefore, above all a projection of cultural themes."
1	TreyAtwood	100 _98th
Holy. Fucking. Shit. I could watch Gena Rowlands for hours.
1	tathiel	74 _38th
Interesting attempt, however difficult to watch, at least for me. I appreciate the actors' skills, but I couldn't connect. I guess I need to watch it again some time.
1	drawkward86	77 _50th
"Don't worry about me. I'm a grown-up. I'm fine." A terrifyingly real, dissonant duet between two of the most disturbingly sick yet recognizable characters ever. Despite coming in at what is, on paper, an absurd running time, the film is infused with a sense of dread and all-too-relatable anxiety that never lets up. Captures the maddening inscrutability that makes complex domestic problems so hard to solve. Messy and imperfect (would you really prefer the alternative?), but unforgettable.
1	Vertiggo	93 _91st
A very tense story, different from all family dramas I have ever seen. The actings are great and sometimes disturbing. At the end you can't tell who is really going into madness... Unique.
1	Mastroianni	100 _91st
What is the line between wonder, genius,love, and insanity? Who dares draw that line?
1	Mechatigger	86 _74th
Cassavetes achieves a remarkable sense of improvisation with his acting troupe.
1	JohnSandwich	75 _74th
It was very good in many ways but didn't have any real emotional effect on me
1	Excelsior	100 _99th
The first time I saw this film, I paused it three times to walk away from my computer out of sheer anxiety. Every character feels like they're on the verge of panicking. Every conversation feels like it lasts too long. This film is dreadful, and I mean that in the best way possible.
1	DerDude	11 _98th
Engages, demands and drains.
1	Suldrup	80 _82nd
Rowlands is simply outstanding. One of the greatest performances in the history of cinema.
1	kevinjoseph	79 _97th
An unparalleled performance by Rowlands, and Falk's great too. It dragged a little at times and the focus issues were sometimes distracting (those that didn't seem to have a purpose, at least), but all in all, a fantastic film.
1	jodamico	90 _98th
Incomparable. One of the most chaotic, and therefore tightly controlled, films I'm aware of.
1	deliz	81 _70th
Marvelous act by Gena Rowlands.
1	PerryStroika	67 _77th
While I was watching this I kept meaning to turn it off, but instead I ended up watching to the end. I hadn't realized how the movie had sucked me in until it was over. Rowlands just seems so uncomfortable, it's truly painful to watch.
1	glumpy_99	71 _37th
Falk and Rowlands both own the screen, giving searing, aching portraits of varying degrees of madness, and while Cassavetes stages the naturalistic, improvised confrontations and conversations expertly, it ultimately feels like to much of a good thing; the heightened emotional states of the characters makes spending five minutes with them exhausting, let alone 2 1/2 hours. Some trimming (especially in the first half) would have helped, once the initial points had been made.
1	damil	80 _90th
Wow, what a brilliant film. Peter Falk and especially Gena Rowlands were phenomenal. I was quite astounded at her portrayal of a mentally unstable woman. It was expertly directed by John Cassavetes. It was one of the most frustrating films I've seen actually. Pretty much all of the characters aggravated me in the way they dealt with Rowlands' character. Highly recommended to anyone who likes a simple story with fascinating characters played by amazing actors.
1	bita	100 _98th
Be yourself.
1	P u l p	95 _99th
Even thinking about this movie gives me goosebumps.
1	JSchlansky	98 _98th
It's okay, I do have a big ass
1	Himinotebook	86 _68th
An incredibly rough sit on an incredibly rough subject, a very understated, naturalistic and subtle look at a clash between mental illness and toxic masculinity, showing a family breakdown over a mans inability to truly allow himself to feel empathy for someone who desperately needs his help. Not a film you enjoy per se but an incredibly valuable experience. Don't watch if you're already feeling sad tho I learned that the hard way
1	adiljun	87 _97th
Hollywood cinematography made the film difficult to watch
1	anilscn	52 _49th
genelin aksine konuşacağım. Gena Rowlands'ın oyunculuğu faciaydı yada yönetmen aşırı karikatür bir karakter yaratmış bilmiyorum. ayrıca filmin sanki tek amacı "psikolojik sıkıntılı bir insanın yakından çekimini gösterelim" efektli olmuş. kadınların iş hayatında dışlanması ve eve hapsedilmesi dışında bir gram alt metni yok. dünyanın en overrated filmlerinden biri kısaca.
1	larmor	81 _82nd
I wanted to love this movie so much and I only liked it. While the topic is addressed with subtlety and the writing is great, the direction is fairly bland overall. Cinema-vérité is not incompatible with crafted photography. While I was engaged and tortured by the very real situations, the social commentary is fairly weak: the depiction of patriarchy within the family is fine, but it does not extend to the material conditions of women in the 70s. Tarr's prefab people is superior in that sense.

Average Percentile 79.39% from 1626 Ratings