Monday - August 31, 2020 - Movie reviews for films that first screened a minute ago: John and Mary (1969).

It’s been a minute, but here is a film to watch on a Saturday morning or early afternoon; when a date, or a serendipitous romantic interlude has happened upon two people ––– something to put on once a Friday evening has spilled into the next morning, or also, once it has collapsed into the next afternoon: John and Mary (1969).

Directed by Peter Yates, the film begins in the dark. The scene is the bedroom of John’s apartment. John (Dustin Hoffman) is sleeping far more soundly than the woman who awakes, a bit a lost though not panicked, in the bed beside him, Mary (Mia Farrow).

At first glance, it’s a wonder that Yates, as well as John Mortimer, who wrote the script, were able to stretch this adaptation of Meryn Jones’ 1966 novel by the same name into a ninety-minute film.

The film moves a bit like a snowball, rolling down a hill, gathering momentum and collecting weight as it continues its descent. The momentum, in part, derives from the fact John and Mary, though already having slept together, know just enough about each other that they’re always wanting to know a bit more. A question begets an answer; which begets another question, which is followed by another answer, and then again, another question.

John and Mary, owing no less to the talent of Hoffman, as well as the deferring yet commanding nature of Farrow, was certainly ahead of its time. One review from the New York Times, from December of 1969, is indicative: “A familiar love story told backwards.” The ‘backwards,’ we’re meant to understand, refers to the fact that these two paramours share a bed and become intimate before going out on several dates and courting each other, rather than after.

Although the balance of the film accompanies John and Mary as they talk, cook, eat, and lounge around John’s modernistic apartment on Riverside Drive –––– he designs furniture, and it shows; consistent use of flashbacks, as well as jump-cuts to future projected possibilities broadens the film’s reach.

The most effective of these are the most immediate; particularly, the flashbacks that travel back less than twenty-four hours, when John and Mary met at a “singles bar” in Manhattan. It’s a crowed and bustling place, one in which John’s friend, Stanley (Stanley Beck) refers to as “A paradise for bachelors,” to which John counters, “The subway, with booze.” Notably, neither John nor Mary actually wanted to be there, yet they were pulled in, by friends.

These flashbacks and leaps forward have a purpose: even if John and Mary are okay with knowing very little about each other’s past, as we’re tuning in and dropping in on their lives for a while on this one Saturday afternoon; naturally, we’re a little curious.

Here’s the short of it; John has fears of abandonment; Mary has struggled to keep a high self-esteem; and they both have built up sizable fortresses around their hearts ––––– lest either one of them actually fall in love.