Pumpkin Eater, The [HD]

ACTING EXCELLENCE.
Anne Bancroft, in an AA nominated performance, plays a twice-married mother of six. She divorces her second husband (played by Richard Johnson) and takes up with a highly successful screenwriter played by Peter Finch. After the two marry, it is obvious that her philandering husband will never buckle down to her notions of marital fidelity. This sometimes confusing, sometimes depressing film is elevated to screen art via once-in-a-lifetime performances by Bancroft, Finch and Mason. As Jo Armitage, Ms Bancroft is magnificent: giving her role real depth, switching her moods with a wonderfully eerie believability. Her breakdown in Harrod's Department Store isn't easily soon forgotten. In his supporting role of Bob Conway, James Mason is nothing short of excellent and Peter Finch excels as Jake. This is a fine film which encompasses the joys and tragedies of life: birth and death, love and hate, marriage and divorce. The direction, slow and even-handed, allows the story to develop at...

The Pumpkin Eater: A Modern Tragedy
Positive reviews of this film often refer to it as a melodrama. It is more significant than that, being a largely successful attempt to create tragedy. Deeply depressed by her husband's infidelity, the heroine, Jo, finds the priviledged lifestyle he affords her, devoid of spiritual value. Her pregnancy becomes a pivotal moment in which she must seemingly choose between her core identity and belief, and an alternative offered by her husband. She makes her choice as if it were a pact with him, only to find herself betrayed. The fight scene that follows is harrowing. At the film's conclusion, in a gesture both exalted and grimly realistic, Jo accepts her husband's offer to continue their life together.

Thus we have the elements of tragedy: success that is a fall from grace; Jo's dilemma at the time of her pregnancy; the tragic insight that allows Jo to reconnect with her husband, as he truly is.

I have rarely been so moved by a film. Surely, this film is unsurpassed in its...

Brilliant Portrait of a Bad Marriage
This is my absolute favorite film of all time, and Anne Bancroft's performance is her best. Made in 1964 and set in London, this film tells the story of a woman who is in the middle of her third marriage, to a screenwriter, played by Peter Finch. Her character, Jo Armitage, is a woman who truly seems to find her self-worth and happiness only when she is pregnant and raising children. Once her children become even only slightly older, she seems to lose her sense of purpose, and allows herself to become quite isolated in the world. Her current husband, the screenwriter, doesn't make matters any better for her either.

This is definitely Anne Bancroft's film all the way, and she is breathtakingly beautiful in it as well. Her portrayal of Jo Armitage paints a very lonely, depressed, lost, and in many ways pathetic character...but it is also strangely my favorite performance of Bancroft. Look also for wonderful supporting performances by James Mason and Maggie Smith. This...

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