Cassavetes’s brutally honest portrait of a husband and wife falling apart at the seams and then seeking meaning in the arms of others is as tough as they come. Independently financed and produced (check the high-contrast 16mm graininess), the film refuses to adhere to any mainstream cinematic conventions, relying instead on a sense of you-are-there directness to convey the characters’ brittle and lonely lives. In some sense, it’s like watching an assemblage of all the footage another director would have left on the cutting room floor, and therein lies its honesty. For some it is a masterpiece of emotional nakedness, for others it is all but unwatchable. (DVD)