Saturday, September 3, 2011

An Unmarried Woman

A loving spouse and kids, good friends and a steady job are usually what makes for a good life. What happens if one of those things crumbles before your eyes?

Erica (Jill Clayburgh) experiences this the hard way. Her husband Martin (Michael Murphy) tells her tearfully (fake tears, of course) that he's fallen in love with a younger woman. Erica can't believe that her husband of sixteen years would on her.

Earlier, we get won over by Erica for a small scene. She's alone in her apartment, the radio playing "Swan Lake". She narrates as she dances through the apartment. Because of this scene and Clayburgh's charm within her part, we root for Erica from this point on.

An Unmarried Woman should honestly get more recognition than it receives. Same goes for Clayburgh. In a film era where the popular leading ladies were Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway, Clayburgh was one of the more underappreciated names of the time. Safe to say her passing last November is felt immensely, more so to those who saw An Unmarried Woman.

My Rating: *****

2 comments:

  1. Calyburgh could do it all. Drama, comedy (check out Starting Over some time), an amazing talent...and you're right...when I heard Clayburgh had died, the first memory of her was her walking down that street in New York carrying that huge canvas in An Unmarried Woman.

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  2. i think it's a really good movie, but it was just missing a little more pizazz to me. and i thought the ending wasn't as neat as i'd liked it to have been.

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