Мужья (Мужчины в кризисе)

1970 film by John Cassavetes

Husbands is a 1970 American comedy drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, and Cassavetes as three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis following the death of a close friend. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, Husbands polarized critics upon release. Jay Cocks of Time described it as Cassavetes's finest work, but other critics, including Vincent Canby, Pauline Kael, and Roger Ebert, lambasted it.

Gus (Cassavetes), Harry (Gazzara), and Archie (Falk) are three nominally happy husbands with families in suburban New York. All are professional men, driven and successful. The three of them have known each other since their school years. They have grown up together and have now had enough time to discover that their youth is disappearing and that there is nothing they can do to preserve it. They are shaken into confronting this reality when their best friend Stuart dies suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. After the funeral, they spend two days hanging out, playing basketball, riding the subway, and drinking, including an impromptu singing contest at a bar. Harry goes home, has a vicious argument with his wife, and decides to fly to London. The other two decide to go with him. They check into an expensive hotel, dress in formal clothing, and meet three young women at a gambling casino. They go back to their rooms with the women. Gus pairs off with Mary, Archie with Julie, a young Asian woman who appears not to speak English, and Harry with Pearl. However, their efforts to hook up with these women are awkward and unsuccessful. Gus and Archie return to New York, but Harry stays behind. Gus and Archie express concern about Harry and what he will do without them.

Cassavetes has stated that this was a very personal film for him, having experienced the loss of a loved one after his older brother died at the age of 30. Cassavetes wrote the dialogue after improvising with Falk and Gazzara, and built the characters around the personalities of the actors. Falk said that he was asked by Cassavetes to appear in Husbands at a lunch meeting at which Cassavetes agreed to appear with Falk in the 1976 Elaine May film Mikey and Nicky. Falk said that he and Gazzara contributed to the Husbands script, but that the story, structure and scenes were devised by Cassavetes. Falk suggested the scene at the end of the movie where Archie and Gus arrive home and divide up the gifts. A scene between Archie and Julie was improvised in a hotel room, with Cassavetes at the camera and no other crew present.

Cassavetes cut around 85 minutes of footage from the film in order to shorten it to its contractual requirement of 140 minutes. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic described Husbands as 'trash with clothes on'. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune included the film on his list of top 10 films of the year. In a retrospective assessment of the film, Philip French of The Observer called it "highly uneven, painfully drawn out, deeply sincere, wildly misogynistic and at times agonisingly tedious. It is also intermittently brilliant, with moments of piercing honesty. There is, however, not a single memorable line of dialogue or anything that might pass for wit. On the other hand, Cassavetes's gifts as a director of actors are evident." Conversely, Richard Brody of The New Yorker called the film a "formally radical, deeply personal work" that "still packs plenty of surprises." On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Husbands holds an approval rating of 65% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 6.3/10.

In August 2009, Husbands was released on DVD, with the 11 minutes that had been cut by Columbia Pictures restored. The film was released on DVD and Blu ray by the Criterion Collection on May 26, 2020.