A Woman Under the Influence

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974) was written and directed by John Cassavetes. His films appear uniquely different from other movies of his time. He said he would do long, ten-minute takes which involve sustained acting in very emotional situations. He said that the actors never know which camera is recording them, so that they must be always immersed in their characters. He said in this film he used hand-held cameras about thirty percent of the time, and he did that filming. He said that that technique allowed for more movement and fluidity. Cassavetes makes it appear that the audience is there, in the middle of the whirlwind. His films do not provide a polished look. There is no distancing through artifice. There is no soundtrack here to prompt how the audience should respond. He creates uncomfortable cinema which challenges the viewer to become invested in the story.

In this film, Nick Longhettei (Peter Falk) has a special night planned for him and his wife Mabel (Gena Rowlands, nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. She was Cassavetes’s wife. Cassavetes was nominated for Best Director). Nick is a hardhat blue-collar worker who is yelling at his boss because he doesn’t want to work that same night because of a water main break. The urgency with which he doesn’t want to ruin his plans shows us how things are precarious in his marriage). Mabel is very agitated as she sends her three young children off with her mother, Martha (Lady Rowlands, Gena’s real mother). Mabel feels guilty about letting them go. She appears frazzled, so we know she is having emotional problems. Throughout the film she wavers between her adult responsibilities versus her own needs.

Nick’s work friend says Mabel is delicate and will go off the deep end when she finds out Nick will have to work, Nick says Mabel is special, not crazy, almost like he’s protesting too much, revealing his own concerns. He does admit that she can burn down a house and that “I don’t know what she can do.” So, his own words reveal his wish to keep things stable while he fears the worst can happen.

Mabel adopts a calm voice when her husband calls about having to work, but then hangs up the phone quickly as if letting go of the forced attempt to appear understanding. She is so upset she goes to a bar, downs a large drink, starts singing, and picks up a guy. Mabel’s drunken staggering implies her physical instability mirrors her mental lack of equilibrium. When man at the bar tries to put the moves on her, she starts hitting him, but then it’s the next morning and hey are at Mabel’s house which shows that she again veered away from acting like a responsible adult since the two obviously had sex. She doesn’t seem to know that the stranger is not Nick, because that is supposed to be who she should be intimate with according to societal rules. She starts wanting to know where her kids and her mother are, bouncing back to her guilt over not being unselfishly present for her family.

Nick brings his crew home, maybe to show his family life is okay, but Mabel talks awkwardly as she offers to cook. She hugs one guy too much, and yells at another in the kitchen for patting her behind. She doesn’t remember one of the guys who was there only three weeks prior. She was listening to Italian opera earlier and now two men sing some opera. She gets too close to one man who is singing. Then Mabel comments about how another is handsome and wants to dance with him. Nick quietly tells her to stop her odd behavior. He eventually explodes when she doesn’t give up. But, he has brought this situation on himself for trying to force what he considers to be normal behavior onto his abnormal family life.

Nick says there’s something in the air causing so many babies to be born. One guy says the moon is causing so many births in the neighborhood. The word lunatic comes from the supposed deviant influence of the moon on people. Nick also uses the word “lunatic” at one point.

Nick gets an annoying call from his mother who fights for his attention as she complains about not feeling well. After hearing all these family issues, the men leave. Nick thinks the workers don’t understand Mabel. Nick desperately wants no negative judgments about his home life.

Nick also has his kids draining him for their attention, even though he has worked all night. He exaggerates his desire for family togetherness by putting everyone in bed, including Mabel’s mother. Mabel’s conflicting emotions are evident as she gets everybody out of the house so the children can go to school, and then abruptly says she misses all those who have left.

Mabel’s nonconformist behavior continues as she confronts people on the street by aggressively asking them the time. She is wearing a skimpy outfit even though she appears chilly. She shows exaggerated excitement as she meets her kids at the bus stop. She asks if others think she’s wacky, which shows she worries about her mental stability. She makes the father of her kids’ friends uncomfortable by being too exuberant, dragging him into kid’s play. She wants the children to play dress-up. Mabel is a child at heart, and she doesn’t show the prescribed behavior of the adult world. She likes Swan Lake, and talks about a swan dying, which suggests how tragedy inhabits the adult mindset. Harold Jensen (Mario Gallo), father of the visiting children, is a disciplinarian and is worried about his kids being with Mabel since the children are taking off their clothes to do dress up.

Nick’s antisocial behavior is evident as he explodes when he comes home with his mother, Margaret (Cassavetes’s real mother, Katherine Cassavetes). He slaps Mabel and has a physical altercation with Jensen. He yells that Mabel should be committed. She says she knows he loves her. She claims that was the first time he hit her, but she’s not angry at him. Her words indicate that things are getting worse between them and are now reaching a breaking point. She then does one of her quick turnarounds by calling Nick a “bug.”

Nick called the family physician, Dr. Zepp (Eddie Shaw) and she becomes paranoid about her mother-in-law and Nick. She says that Zepp has something in his bag that will “imprison” her, a sedative which she sees as restricting her. The mother then explodes, yelling that Mabel can’t be in the house. Irrational behavior blossoms all over the place. However, Mabel says that insanity is what the children are subjected to, getting up, going to school, suggesting they are locked into restrictive routines. She tells the doctor he’s the one who is sick, probably implying that someone who would enforce one’s will on another is the person with an illness. Perhaps the "Influence" of the title could refer to this external pressure warping an individual's individuality, the word itself meaning a "flowing in" from the outside. She makes the sign of the cross as if warding off a vampire who would suck out her life force. He commits her to be hospitalized.

Nick is an Italian American male who doesn’t want to appear to be vulnerable. He also wants his privacy. His family life becomes a topic for discussion at work, which just aggravates his position in and out of the home. A worker he yells at falls off a hill, showing how his anti-social anger causes harm to others.

He keeps trying to impose normalcy by taking his kids to the beach to have a good time, but he is so frazzled and yells so much that he makes everything seem tense. His desire to make his children happy leads him to recklessness, as is seen when he lets them sip some beer despite their young ages. They get dizzy and sleepy.

After six months, Nick wants to have a welcoming home party for Mabel, but it is overwhelming because he forces too much of what passes for normalcy onto the situation. But despite his desires, he is not up to managing a party, since he has no refreshments at home for his guests. His mother yells (that may be where he gets his anger from), saying there are too many people and only family members should be present. Nick tells his mother to send everybody except a few guests away, which makes things uncomfortable, the opposite of Nick’s goal.

Mabel arrives and struggles to stay “calm” as she cries when reuniting with her kids. Her father is encouraging but she acts too affectionately toward him because she requires so much support. Nick almost isn’t accepting of her sedate way and yells that she should just be herself. (Falk, in an interview, said there must have been an attraction for Nick toward Mabel’s unconventional behavior). Nick keeps piling pressure on how life should be by saying how everything is going to get better and better. However, Mabel starts making uncomfortable, but honest, statements as she says how big one relative’s ass is, and now she wants everyone to go home so she can go to bed with Nick. Nick again forces what is supposed to be normal when he requires small talk. Mabel starts to talk about shock therapy, which again is frank, unnerving talk. Mabel begs for her father to “stand up” for her. Mabel’s mother makes an enigmatic comment about how Mabel’s father should know what that means. There may be a suggestion that there was inappropriate behavior between father and daughter in the past here.

Mabel starts to act bizarrely, yelling at others, then singing, then running away from Nick. She cuts herself and moves her hands in slow motion while standing on a couch. These unconventional actions seem to be protests against trying to restrain her behavior. Nick is out of control, too, but violently, as he smacks Mabel off the couch, threatening to kill her and the kids. His words may suggest his exasperated way of wishing to escape what he sees as chaos in his life. She quiets down again, and Nick says the kids want her to tuck them in, another attempt to play at an average home life. She keeps saying she loves Nick despite his violence. The little boy hugs mom and shows his dad a fist, shows he is taking a stance to protect his mother.

After the kids are in the bedroom, Mabel, lucidly, says she must really be nuts, and she doesn’t know how all of this started. She seems to be able at this moment to gain some distance and insight from all that has transpired. Nick wants to take care of her cut hand, but at this moment he is unable to reassure her that he still loves her. He is not trying to rationalize here and is finally being honest about things. They do some cleaning up, like a regular husband and wife would do after a party. There is a phone ringing, and Nick ignores it. Falk said that is probably his mother, and Nick is taking a stance to put his wife first at that point.

We finally get music, which features a kazoo, over the closing credits, which fits the unconventional thrust of the story.