David Denby
“Erica (Jill Clayburgh) … has always taken damned good care of herself…. Erica's life is strenuous, happy and carefully protected…. Like so many upper-middle-class women of her generation (she's about 38) Erica might be defined by her tastes and interests rather than her work and passions…. [N]othing has ever tested her much. But then … her husband tells her he's fallen in love with a girl he met in Bloomingdale's and her life falls apart. Alone for the first time, she feels panicky, empty, angry. Tentatively, she begins searching … for something new. Yet what that new life might be she has no idea. None at all.
“…. By making Erica rich, beautiful and utterly sane, Mazursky has limited the range of her experience in advance, and he never lets her suffer deeply…. Erica is an ideal abandoned woman . . . . Still…, it's a juicy, knowing and intimate movie, brilliantly acted, sensitively directed, and filled with lovingly accurate observation of that greatest of movie sets, our cultural and personal battlefield, New York City…. As a social chronicle, the film is flawless.
“…. [The] scenes of Erica with women are the weakest in the film, and I suspect that Mazursky's heart isn't in them. He knows that female solidarity comforts an abandoned woman, so he doesn't poke fun at it, but sisterhood just isn't real for him--not the way encounters between men and women, no matter how brief are real.
“Once these encounters [between men and women] begin, the movie comes brilliantly to life….
“Jill Clayburgh is perfect for this part of the movie. Her dominant characteristic is an appealing vagueness. She's tall and leggy, with a sensational long back, but there's something shapeless and colorless about her face; the complexion is whitish; the gray-green eyes, usually at half-mast, aren't quite in focus, and her nasal voice wanders alarmingly, like a bagpipe running out of wind. In earlier movies Clayburgh has been charming, though she's often had trouble finding the center of her emotions; Mazursky is the first director to use that indecisiveness dramatically. Staring in a mirror, the abandoned Erica tries to compose her face into a mask of woe, but she cracks up and makes a stupid joke; she knows perfectly well that she's not a tragic heroine. What she feels is a generalized sense of loss. Questioned about her emotions, this large, floppy, unaggressive woman gives way to bewildered tears. She had no idea life could be so painful. From there on, Erica's pain and anger are the only emotions she can be clear about; when she puts down those men, she momentarily knows who she is.
“Clayburgh's skittishness gives the sex scenes a startling comic tension. Has there ever been a funnier or more accurate one-night stand than Erica's encounter with Charlie, the "promising" wood sculptor and established SoHo sex hustler?…. Clayburgh, stripped to her panties, has her finest moment--a nervous, pigeon-toed run across Gorman's loft to turn out the lights…. [review cut]
“…. [Mazursky's] made Saul [Alan Bates] such a grizzled, vital Adam that all of nature seems to call out for union with Erica. Yet [Mazursky] respects her tremulous, unformed desire to find herself. Erica resists, and at the end she's left spinning around in the wind, trying to hold on to one of Saul's huge paintings in the SoHo streets. She's gone from jogging to spinning--from secure and pointless routine to a whirligig of identities and possibilities. It's a tentative, inconclusive ending that will probably satisfy no one, particularly women. Feminists will wonder why Erica hasn't taken greater control of her life; divorcees will be sore because they've never met a man like Saul Kaplan, much less had the opportunity to turn him down.
“However…., [g]iven the character of Erica as developed through the movie, her unwillingness to throw in her lot with such a powerful man as Saul makes perfect sense. As I said earlier, it's Mazursky's conception of the character that limits the film.... [I]f she weren't so well off, she wouldn't have much time to dither about her identity, and the last third of the movie might have been more decisive … [I]f [Mazursky] had taken her much further into trouble, kept her at the extremes of her emotions, he might have ended with a radiant affirmation rather than a large question mark. But at least he's asking the right questions.”
David Denby
Boston Phoenix, April 4, 1978
“…. By making Erica rich, beautiful and utterly sane, Mazursky has limited the range of her experience in advance, and he never lets her suffer deeply…. Erica is an ideal abandoned woman . . . . Still…, it's a juicy, knowing and intimate movie, brilliantly acted, sensitively directed, and filled with lovingly accurate observation of that greatest of movie sets, our cultural and personal battlefield, New York City…. As a social chronicle, the film is flawless.
“…. [The] scenes of Erica with women are the weakest in the film, and I suspect that Mazursky's heart isn't in them. He knows that female solidarity comforts an abandoned woman, so he doesn't poke fun at it, but sisterhood just isn't real for him--not the way encounters between men and women, no matter how brief are real.
“Once these encounters [between men and women] begin, the movie comes brilliantly to life….
“Jill Clayburgh is perfect for this part of the movie. Her dominant characteristic is an appealing vagueness. She's tall and leggy, with a sensational long back, but there's something shapeless and colorless about her face; the complexion is whitish; the gray-green eyes, usually at half-mast, aren't quite in focus, and her nasal voice wanders alarmingly, like a bagpipe running out of wind. In earlier movies Clayburgh has been charming, though she's often had trouble finding the center of her emotions; Mazursky is the first director to use that indecisiveness dramatically. Staring in a mirror, the abandoned Erica tries to compose her face into a mask of woe, but she cracks up and makes a stupid joke; she knows perfectly well that she's not a tragic heroine. What she feels is a generalized sense of loss. Questioned about her emotions, this large, floppy, unaggressive woman gives way to bewildered tears. She had no idea life could be so painful. From there on, Erica's pain and anger are the only emotions she can be clear about; when she puts down those men, she momentarily knows who she is.
“Clayburgh's skittishness gives the sex scenes a startling comic tension. Has there ever been a funnier or more accurate one-night stand than Erica's encounter with Charlie, the "promising" wood sculptor and established SoHo sex hustler?…. Clayburgh, stripped to her panties, has her finest moment--a nervous, pigeon-toed run across Gorman's loft to turn out the lights…. [review cut]
“…. [Mazursky's] made Saul [Alan Bates] such a grizzled, vital Adam that all of nature seems to call out for union with Erica. Yet [Mazursky] respects her tremulous, unformed desire to find herself. Erica resists, and at the end she's left spinning around in the wind, trying to hold on to one of Saul's huge paintings in the SoHo streets. She's gone from jogging to spinning--from secure and pointless routine to a whirligig of identities and possibilities. It's a tentative, inconclusive ending that will probably satisfy no one, particularly women. Feminists will wonder why Erica hasn't taken greater control of her life; divorcees will be sore because they've never met a man like Saul Kaplan, much less had the opportunity to turn him down.
“However…., [g]iven the character of Erica as developed through the movie, her unwillingness to throw in her lot with such a powerful man as Saul makes perfect sense. As I said earlier, it's Mazursky's conception of the character that limits the film.... [I]f she weren't so well off, she wouldn't have much time to dither about her identity, and the last third of the movie might have been more decisive … [I]f [Mazursky] had taken her much further into trouble, kept her at the extremes of her emotions, he might have ended with a radiant affirmation rather than a large question mark. But at least he's asking the right questions.”
David Denby
Boston Phoenix, April 4, 1978
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