This is Peter Falk's film. Period.<br /><br />I was 10 years old when this film came out; I was already a film maven at the time. Of course neither my parents nor I saw this film when it came out, but I was in love with the typeface of its ads & the aura that this was An Important Film. Okay, 34 years later I've finally seen the film--having never seen any Cassavetes-directed film previously. He's a hack, overall. Zero sense of timing, editing. Gena's performance reminds me too much of Dustin Hoffman's stint in "Rain Man": technically on par but entirely one-note. As Tom Cruise stole "Rain Man," Falk takes the cake for this film.<br /><br />I was annoyed with Gena's performance, really throughout--it seemed better suited for "Awakenings" (blecch!). It's not all her fault: she's a basket case from first scene to last. We never find out why?? But Falk's character seems real & is performed WONDERFULLY by Falk as a seriously flawed man.<br /><br />Shave off at least an hour (an editor needed!), and this would have been an arresting portrait not of a woman under the influence but of a simple, Cro-Magnon, man coming to grips with a wife who doesn't work & yet cannot deal with her three kids & her husband's long hours of work.<br /><br />I'd rather remember Cassavetes for "The Dirty Dozen" or "Rosemary's Baby." He would have been a better director had he snipped his own tendency for excess--as he amply demonstrates with this film.<br /><br />Bob