A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

“Mabel” (Gena Rowlands) and husband “Nick” (Peter Falk) are happily enough married. He leads a construction team whilst she tries to cope with their three children. “Mabel” definitely burns the candle at both ends. She wishes to come across as a loving mother and wife whilst presenting a life and soul of the party image designed to ensure that all around her are happy. “Nick” knows, however, that many of their friends think her enthusiasm is symptomatic of something more sinister and that just perhaps she might be losing her grip. Gradually, both her husband and this film’s audience start to realise that “Mabel” is on the precipice of something traumatic, and that something will have to be done - a decision that is hastened by an example of recklessness that “Nick” knows he cannot afford to ignore. His solution may well help his wife to get proper medical assessment, diagnosis and to hopefully recover - but it also leaves him trying to juggle his business responsibilities as well as looking after three stroppy and independently-minded youngsters. With his own stress levels increasing and the return of his wife soon looming, the atmosphere reaches a crescendo of temperamental toxicity that involves family and friends alike. The casting of both Rowlands and Falk is inspired, here, She turns in as visceral a performance as you’re ever likely see as she treads an increasingly blurred line between sanity and an illness that all can see coming but her. Meantime, Falk delivers strongly as his character treads a similarly delicate path that sees conflict between love, loyalty and necessity present itself to man whose own grasp on sanity is sorely tested, too. It is also worth noting that the bairns also contribute powerfully here, too. What is distinctly unnerving about this movie is the way in which we are sucked into the plot. So often the photography is intimate and intense, but at other times it seems more designed to support our own more distant, fly-on-the-wall location on the sidelines - yet we never feel that we have missed anything. Suffice to say that there could be a great many “children” here, and they are not all in short pants nor necessarily on the celluloid either. It has moments of humour to it, either deliberately or as a technique from “Nick” to attempt to defuse the increasingly frenzied scenarios “Mabel” is constructing and by the end of this, I felt a degree of uncomfortable exhaustion. This isn’t an easy watch but it’s worth it.