JUDY DAVIS as SALLY in HUSBANDS & WIVES

JUDY DAVIS

HUSBANDS & WIVES goes beneath the surface of marital woes in a way few movies ever do. It examines marriage, from the insides, of what keeps people together and what rips them apart. It makes you laugh, deeply, and it makes you squirm. Part of the discomfort is intentional, for the movie is designed to cut close to the bone. At the time, we were all going to find some juicy psychological nuggets regarding Woody and Mia’s split – boy were we in for more than we bargained for –it’s all right here in HUSBANDS & WIVES, plus a powerhouse performance from Judy Davis.

The strongest, most self-reliant, independent character Sally (Just Davis) is actually the one needs a relationship the most. Like Taylors’ Martha – Davis’ Sally is a hurricane of emotions with all the brains and language at her disposal – but is defenseless to control what’s really going on inside of her.

(I once let a friend borrow my VHS copy of HUSBANDS & WIVES years ago. When he gave it back to me – he told me he was leaving his girlfriend. “Gee I’m sorry, I probably should have let you borrow ‘Babe’ instead”.  I can’t believe I haven’t written about this Signature Role sooner. It’s one of my all time favorites. If you’re a good friend of mine you know that I can do Judy’s Sally lines almost verbatim – with the same inflection – everything – cigarette included. I’ve seen it at least a 200 times.)

Sally is a familiar Woody Allen construct: a woman who has it all -- looks, brains, talent, wit -- who is deeply, desolately unhappy. This Woody Allen "stock female character" is defined both by her desperate loneliness and by her private gnawing certainty that she has been cheated of some undefined something that is her due. Sally is always bitter, sad and possessed of a vicious tongue. 

When Davis's Sally announces that she and her husband (Sydney Pollack – also the best performance of his acting career) of nearly 25 years will be separating, she does so with the obliquely self-satisfied verve of a novelist announcing the sale of movie rights, or a parent proclaiming their offspring's acceptance to Harvard. (Of course, we later learn that Sally thought herself to be the one who had settled in her marriage, that something better surely awaited her.)

‘The feast at lele resistance scene’ is Sally going back and forth on the phone with Pollack when she agrees to go on a date with an unsuspecting suitor (Timothy Jerome) caught in the revolving door of her anger. It is a classic date from hell with Davis going from being unhinged to trying to be somewhat interested. “A Don Juan story, (in one of her many brilliant asides to herself), fucking Don Juan’s… they should of cut his fucking dick off.” (Laughs, lights – inhales – puff) Yet, as Allen and Davis are both careful to communicate, Sally's obnoxiousness as is part of her powerful appeal, as men fall this way and that over themselves in pursuit of Davis's Sally. Some men retreat (like this unknowing co-worker Paul who stands helplessly as Davis rants and rages on the phone).

Twitching with brainy, neurotic rage, Davis is explosively funny as the hypercritical Sally, a woman whose overactive mind won't give her-or anyone else--any rest. What I also love about this scene and her overall Sally is her classical blue-blood poise – at the same time making the most ugly faces one mask can allow. She throws her vanity completely out the window in pursuit of her needs.

Davis's Sally is perhaps most remarkable among Allen's "difficult women" for her utter lack of apology. Davis permits the character's self-absorption to be total, self-ratifying, an end unto itself. She does not flutter with self-consciousness, or implode from the weight of her own angst. When, however, she realizes that her marriage had been the only thing keeping her devastating loneliness at bay, and that her husband has apparently found happiness with another while she remains alone, Davis's Sally soldiers on, guns-ablazing -- unconcerned with casualties left behind in her scorched earth strategy of complete vengeance.

Rather, Davis's Sally is solely concerned with maintaining the formidable edifice of her own ego (and blithely oblivious to whatever collateral damage she might cause). I love that Davis's full-throated delivery transforms what might have been throwaway barbs into ballistic missiles. For Davis's Sally, the act of judging others comes as naturally as the act of breathing and -- in some ways -- is more essential than eating. As a result, Sally's sideways insults amplify both the character's grandiosity (as when she rants about Mahler not knowing when to stop) and her interpersonal tone-deafness (her articulate disdain for pretty much anything her date professes to admire). As a result, Davis's Sally is not nearly as pathetic as other iterations for this Woody Allen stock character. (She is, however, a lot more obnoxious -- emphasis on the noxious.)

Others unwittingly pursue (like the lovestruck Michael [played here by an ideally hunky Liam Neeson] who has no idea how outmatched he -- a hedgehog -- is by Sally, a fox.). But these unsuspecting men prove to be merely obstacles in Sally's path as she pursues her single-minded goal: to prove her husband wrong for wanting anyone but her.

And unlike most of these particular Allen women, Davis's Sally is victorious in her pursuit. Her estranged husband returns and, for Sally, this is a victory to savor. Moreover, Judy Davis shows us this emotional foundation for Sally's generally awful behavior without ever excusing it. Davis's Sally is at first distance and resolved in her choice, then flails into rapid uncertainty like a pit-bull sent back to the cement rivers to fight her way back to the possible 'unresolved flare ups' of domestic doom.  He passions and lusts were never her strong point. She's an academic. All told, Davis is consistently spellbinding in the role. Woody Allen said in his book 'Woody on Woody' that "Geraldine Page is the best American actress, but that Judy Davis is the best film actress of all time". The movie becomes most alive when she's onscreen. And she somehow makes the most overtly obnoxious character on the screen also the most likable. Judy Davis's performance as Sally proves to be a provocative, memorable and perhaps the most hilarious of all of Allen's signature "difficult" women.