This is a tough film to find; it’s not on any streaming platform. So I had to order it on Amazon, and it took several weeks past the promised date to arrive. Once it date, it had Korean writing on it, leading me to conclude I had to send away to Korea for the film. But it was worth the film. All I knew about it is that the woman protagonist walked away from a potential husband, and that was from a reference made by the titular character in Private Benjamin (“I would’ve married Alan Bates in a second!”).
At the film’s outset, Erica is a seemingly happily married woman with a good job at an art gallery, a loving husband, and an intelligent daughter. The first thirty minutes appear to be a slice of life, as we see the family in their routine. Then, suddenly, her husband, Martin, breaks down crying, confessing that he’s in love with a much younger woman and that he wants a divorce. Later in the film, when he begs Erica for another chance, we see it’s a midlife crisis. I was happy when she basically told him to fuck off (if only that happened more in real life, but, hey, the human condition).
Much of the film is a slice of life as Erica navigates her newfound, involuntary single status. She immediately gets out there and dates (this detail is true to life). Her encounters include a divorced guy who tries to hump her right in the back of a taxi and a one-night stand with a guy who says he only wants short term, but seems to change his mind post-coitus.
During the back half of the film, she begins dating Saul, a British painter, and they have chemistry. But, as progressive as he is, he does pressure Erica toward “riding the relationship escalator.” By the end, Erica’s realized she’s not closed off to romantic love, but she doesn’t need to let it define it. At one point, she tells Saul, “It was always Martin and Erica, Martin and Erica.” I read an article that mentions that when one divorces, they have to go through a grieving process beyond losing their partner. They lose a big part of their identity, which consisted of being one-half of the couple. This film is about Erica’s exploration of herself as a whole person, partnered or not. The film’s final shot, of her carrying one of Saul’s paintings down a Manhattan street, is powerful in its portrayal of women’s liberation.
One notable exchange: Erica’s daughter Patti points out, “I’m never getting married. Every married person I know is either miserable or divorced.” When Erica points out there are plenty of happily married couples, Patti responds, “Name three.” Patti can’t do it. The director, Paul Mazursky, who married at the age of twenty-three and stayed that way until his death at eighty four, must have some interesting takes on the idea, and I appreciate that a person who stayed married for long as he did has such an enlightened take on singlehood.
The film isn’t necessarily saying “singlehood is better than marriage” but it does run counter to the common Hollywood theme of “find your other half” by saying “be a complete person, whether you partner up or not.”