David Denby
“…. [T]he movie is about a large family's agonized relations with the family matriarch, Eve (Geraldine Page), a kind of earth mother in reverse--she draws life and energy out of her husband and children, leaving them half paralyzed with guilt.
“An accomplished and beautiful woman, Eve dominates her family with hysterical good taste, imposing her style on everyone's home, so that none of her offspring can escape her. Since her imperiousness is accompanied by unending self-pity and a readiness to find betrayal in the slightest holding back of affection, her children can neither live up to her standards nor simply offer their love without losing their self-respect. When this piteous Queen Lear is finally abandoned by her husband (E. G. Marshall), she falls apart, drifting toward madness and death…
“…. Woody Allen pushes for the maximum intensity out of his actresses. I had trouble accepting Diane Keaton's stiff-backed irritability as a poet's despair, but Geraldine Page, on the other hand, is a revelation. So mannered and tricky years ago in her much praised movie performances in Summer and Smoke and Sweet Bird of Youth, she's a plainer actress now; as the psychotic Eve she unnerves us by letting her face crumple and her unmoored voice drift off into a querulous whine. Heavy and jowly, swathed in flowing gray robes, she is the Manhattan matron in extremis, both pitiful and terrifying. Matching her in intensity in the thankless role of Joey, Marybeth Hurt clenches her teeth and sets her jaw tight, her face hardened against the rejection Joey expects. Since her expression is nearly immobile, the performance moves us strictly through vocal nuance….
David Denby
New York, August 14, 1978
“An accomplished and beautiful woman, Eve dominates her family with hysterical good taste, imposing her style on everyone's home, so that none of her offspring can escape her. Since her imperiousness is accompanied by unending self-pity and a readiness to find betrayal in the slightest holding back of affection, her children can neither live up to her standards nor simply offer their love without losing their self-respect. When this piteous Queen Lear is finally abandoned by her husband (E. G. Marshall), she falls apart, drifting toward madness and death…
“…. Woody Allen pushes for the maximum intensity out of his actresses. I had trouble accepting Diane Keaton's stiff-backed irritability as a poet's despair, but Geraldine Page, on the other hand, is a revelation. So mannered and tricky years ago in her much praised movie performances in Summer and Smoke and Sweet Bird of Youth, she's a plainer actress now; as the psychotic Eve she unnerves us by letting her face crumple and her unmoored voice drift off into a querulous whine. Heavy and jowly, swathed in flowing gray robes, she is the Manhattan matron in extremis, both pitiful and terrifying. Matching her in intensity in the thankless role of Joey, Marybeth Hurt clenches her teeth and sets her jaw tight, her face hardened against the rejection Joey expects. Since her expression is nearly immobile, the performance moves us strictly through vocal nuance….
David Denby
New York, August 14, 1978
posted by Intersections28 - David Gibson at
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