Michael Neumann
Very little in the previous career of director Paul Mazursky gave any hint of the depth and complexity of this comedy drama, adapted from an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about the misadventures of a Jewish refugee (Ron Silver) in New York City shortly after World War Two. Silver has a few problems most men wouldn't mind sharing, including a wife who is more a devoted servant and a mistress as passionate as she is temperamental, but the cozy arrangement is complicated by the unexpected return of his first wife, long thought dead, to act as a ghostly conscience and councilor for her bewildered husband. The film is so well made, with such attention to period flavor and detail, that it seems mean to point out its few nagging shortcomings: the haphazard structure, with too many sudden, incompatible changes in mood, and the equally inconsistent characters (it's never made clear, for example, why all three women are so devoted to this particular nobody). Too bad some of the effort that went into the production didn't first go into the script, but it's still an unusually rich experience, with an added dimension of depth from the specters of the Holocaust still haunting each character.
TedMichaelMor
Director Paul Mazursky's "Enemies, A Love Story" interplays wondrous ironies, narrative twists, humour, and wisdom. With a keen eye for historical nuance and detail (which the director describes in a voice-over commentary on one DVD edition), he explores the limits of suffering and survival—the loss that one cannot transcend against a community that does transcend immense evil.I very much like Fred Taylor's elegant cinematography as well as subtle editing by Stuart Pappé. These are important components of films. Casting seems to be perfect in a film with great depth worn (for the most part) lightly.Some of the film deeply bothered me because I suffer from chronic depression. I could not watch this film more than twice. However, Roger Simon and the director have created a splendid adaptation from the Isaac Singer masterwork.Ron Silver, always a gifted actor, never did any better work than this depiction of the paranoid, driven, and almost broken Herman Brother. Małgorzata Zajączkowska's tender Yadwiga, Herman's Polish Catholic savior and wife, centers the narrative by being more faithful to Judaism than her husband or his corrupt rabbi employer. Alan King as Rabbi Lembeck recalls for me a number of corrupt Protestant pastors I have known or for whom I worked. King plays this role with great skill.No one but Anjelica Houston could play Tamara, Herman's first wife, and the one who with the second wife redeems tradition and the future. Lena Olin's Marsha overwhelmed me. She is why I cannot watch the movie again. What a powerful portrait of despair. This is a great film. Watch it. It is a blessing and a boon.
moonspinner55
Filmmaker Paul Mazursky obviously lavished a lot of love on "Enemies: A Love Story", but the material's thin design shows through, that and a curiously limited budget which gives the nostalgic trimmings a misplaced, artificial appearance. Pretentious drama adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel takes place in New York 1949, with Holocaust survivor Ron Silver involved with three different women: his second wife, his mistress, and his first wife long thought deceased. Solid acting by Silver and Lena Olin, superb work by Anjelica Huston nearly keeps this stilted formula afloat, but the period flavor was too elaborate a feat for low-budget Mazursky to capture, and the finale is sadly ineffective. ** from ****
PINAR BEDIRLI
The acting was nice, the story good... But I am just wondering, why those people are speaking to each other with an Italian ACCENT all the time? I mean, they are Polish! "Herman Broder" is a guy, who escape from the Nazi's in Poland. They are Polish people with Jewish background. Just to make some simple minded watchers ("somewhere underdeveloped in Europe") clear that the main characters are Jewish, letting them speak with an Italian accent is so unbelievable! However, the acting was very nice and even if the sexual scenes are exaggerated a little bit, it is a good movie to watch (for adults - who can understand this) because some scenes are really heart-breaking... Can only recommend it.
AD
