A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes, and starring his wife Gena Rowlands and close friend Peter Falk.
Mabel says she does not know how to act without the routine provided by the hospital, which included therapies and medications and shock treatments, and she asks everyone to leave.
From the American Film Institute:[1] John Cassavetes was inspired to write A Woman Under the Influence when his wife Gena Rowlands expressed a desire to appear in a play about the difficulties faced by contemporary women.
His completed script was so intense and emotional that she knew she would be unable to perform it eight times a week, so he decided to adapt it for the screen.
"[8] Lacking studio financing, he mortgaged his house and borrowed money from family and friends, one of whom was Peter Falk, who liked the screenplay so much that he invested $500,000 in the project.
Working with a limited budget forced him to shoot scenes in a real house near Hollywood Boulevard, and Rowlands was responsible for her own hairstyling and makeup.
[8] Upon completion of the film, Cassavetes was unable to find a distributor, so he personally called theater owners and asked them to show it.
When Richard Dreyfuss appeared on The Mike Douglas Show with Peter Falk, he described A Woman Under the Influence as "the most incredible, disturbing, scary, brilliant, dark, sad, depressing movie", and added that he "went crazy.
[9] On September 21, 2004, The Criterion Collection released the film—together with Shadows (1959), Faces (1968), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Opening Night (1977)—in Region 1 as part of the eight-disc DVD box set John Cassavetes: Five Films.
[10] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 35 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Electrified by searing performances from Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk, A Woman Under the Influence finds pioneering independent filmmaker John Cassavetes working at his artistic peak.
[...] The actress’s style of performing sometimes shows a kinship with that of the early Kim Stanley or the recent Joanne Woodward, but the notes of desperation are emphatically her own.
"[12] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "terribly complicated, involved and fascinating – a revelation", and saying: "The characters are larger than life (although not less convincing because of that), and their loves and rages, their fights and moments of tenderness, exist at exhausting levels of emotion.
[...] Cassavetes is strongest as a writer and filmmaker at creating specific characters and then sticking with them through long, painful, uncompromising scenes until we know them well enough to read them, to predict what they'll do next and even to begin to understand why.
Rowlands unfortunately overdoes the manic psychosis at times, and lapses into a melodramatic style which is unconvincing and unsympathetic; but Falk is persuasively insane as the husband; and the result is an astonishing, compulsive film, directed with a crackling energy.
"[15] TV Guide gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "tough-minded", "moving", and "an insightful essay on sexual politics.