One of the funniest, more bizarre things that makes me chuckle every time I read an opinion like this is how Americans portray and react to sex and violence in movies, TV, and pop culture. Movies like the Saw series where people's bodies are hacked up into countless pieces? Sure, kid, go ahead and see it. The slightest peek at a woman's breast? Run for the hills! Scandal! R-rating! Call it a double standard, a backwards way of looking at things, but it's how things go. Shown on TCM a few weeks back in the dead of the night (probably the safest time it could be shown), this movie tackles the sexual revolution head on with a brutal, forthright honesty that is missing from most similar movies.
As students at college in the 1950s, friends and roommates Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) have one thing and one thing only on their minds; sex. It's what they talk about, what they think about, and generally it drives their lives. Sandy meets a co-ed from a nearby girls school, Susan (Candice Bergen), and starts dating her, hopefully getting to the point where their relationship takes the next step. Jonathan gets involved in a way a close friend shouldn't, ending up messing up his head and putting him down a bad path. He eventually ends up a New York model, Bobbie (Ann-Margret), who he hits it off with immediately, but after their relationship develops, he doesn't know where to go or what to do because he doesn't want to get married.
That is a bare-bones description of director Mike Nichols' story that is told in episodic fashion, almost three 30-minute TV shows edited into one. I don't want to say much more without giving away major plot points that would ruin the movie for someone going in with a fresh slate. The first episode is Jonathan and Sandy at college in the 1950s, the second focusing on Jonathan and Bobbie living in NYC in the 1960s, and then the third is a quick wrap-up, the two friends fully grown now and warped by where their lives have taken them.
With a talented writer/director as Nichols, it would hard for this movie not to be well done. It is brutally honest in its portrayal of relationships between men and women and how ideas and perceptions about sex changed over a 20-year plus span. The TCM intro said 'MA for Mature Audience and L for language' but I really had no idea what I was getting into. If this movie was released today in 2011, you can just hear mothers' groups complaining about it, trying to get it banned from theaters. It is refreshing in its honesty, but there's a problem I had. I didn't like either of the main characters, and only one of the supporting players. I'm not sure 'didn't like' is a strong enough description. I hated them.
Now that said, Nicholson and Bergen are some of the best actors/actresses around, and they deliver great performances, but as the people they are portraying, I hated them. SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS After hearing Sandy's feelings about Susan, Jonathan goes out on a dates with, eventually has sex with her, develops feelings, finally realizes he's taken it too far, and they mutually decide to end it. Are we supposed to congratulate you for making a tough decision? You went behind your best friend's back and slept with his girlfriend. That doesn't give a pass to Bergen's Susan by any means, but Nicholson's actions bothered me more. END OF SPOILERS The real world ain't always that pleasant, I get it, and relationships are tough, and as shown here, relationships bring out the worst in everyone. But man alive, something redeeming would have been nice.
So while their performances are all really well handled, I couldn't stand most of the characters. Garfunkel just isn't a strong enough actor to share as much time as he did with Nicholson who overshadows him. Also seeing Garfunkel with his white guy afro completely neutralizes him as any sort of love interest. He just looks too ridiculous. The one character I liked (and not just because she's naked or half-naked most of her time on-screen) was Margret's Bobbie. She is a woman in her late 20s just looking for some sort of happiness, thinking she's found it in Nicholson's Jonathan. Their confrontation is a frightful one, a screaming match that must have been a doozy to film. I genuinely felt for her character while slamming home the final nail in Jonathan's coffin. He pushed her to this place where she's struggling so badly, but he hates what she's become. Pick one or the other, amigo. You can't have both ways.
Judging this solely on the movie aspects is a lot easier. Nichols uses several techniques which were also signs of the times, directors trying to expand the movie-going experience. He uses long, unedited takes of characters just discussing, just talking, going back and forth. It had to put more pressure on the actors to get it right, but they rise to the occasion. Also, he has Nicholson and Garfunkel talk directly into the camera, having the viewer step in as the other friend. It's a simple device, but it was cool in the way it put us right into the story. For supporting performances, look for Rita Moreno, Carol Kane, and Cynthia O'Neal as other love interests that drift in and out of the story as needed. Disregard the tone of the trailer below. This is not a comedy regardless of the big band music used.
Carnal Knowledge <---trailer (1971): **/****
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