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Sep 22, 2014 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

It’s helpful in understanding John Cassavetes’ last great feature, Love Streams, to know it was pitched to Cannon Films – yes, the same Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus who, in 1984, also produced movies such as Exterminator 2, Ninja III: The Domiantion, and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo – as a comedy. Very loosely adapted from a play by Ted Allan, it focuses on two severely broken individuals: Robert (Cassavetes), a bestselling writer of erotic novels, and Sarah (Gena Rowlands), a wealthy housewife in the midst of a messy divorce. The relationship between the two is kept a mystery at first—they don’t meet until the middle of the film, after we’ve been introduced to Robert’s drunken, romantic foibles, live-in harem, and abandoned child, and watched Sarah’s divorce proceedings and part of a miserable European vacation. It’s dark territory, for sure, but when these two damaged creatures finally collide – in the sort of long, joyous embrace that can only be shared two people with much old love between them – the film starts down an even more surreal, dreamlike trail. By the time Sarah guides a menagerie of animals – two ponies, a goat, a parakeet, chickens, and a duck – into Robert’s posh Los Angeles home, there’s no more doubt Love Streams is some sort of twisted, tragic comedy.

Love Streams would be the last film the director helmed from beginning to end (1986’s Big Trouble was picked up – and later disowned – by Cassavetes only after Andrew Bergman dropped off the project) and was clearly a highly personal endeavor. He shot the film in his own home and starred opposite his wife; he was already working on it when he was informed he was dying of cirrhosis. It’s appropriate that his final performance is so powerful; Robert lives behind an emotional brick wall of his own design, sabotaging any sparks of meaningful, personal connection either through deflection or a constant stream of alcoholic impairment. Rowlands, of course, rises to meet his performance. On screen, the two are a perfect match.

Criterion, of course, knocks their blu-ray out of the park. Making its first (official) domestic appearance since the days of VHS, Love Streams looks incredible in its new 2K restoration. (One scene – in which Sarah and Robert slow dance by the glow of a Rockola jukebox – is particularly jaw-dropping.) The extra features are generous; the booklet includes an essay by Dennis Lim that greatly helps clarify some elements of the film post-viewing, as well as a piece Cassavetes wrote for the New York Times for the film’s release. The star bonus feature, of course, is the hour-long 1984 documentary I’m Almost Not Crazy, shot behind-the-scenes during the filming of Love Streams, focusing on the filmmaker and his method of working.

www.criterion.com/films/28032-love-streams

Author rating: 8/10