It’s often been said that in order for a story to be effective, all one needs is a single location, a pair of good actors and a strong script that gives them something to do. It’s the foundation for a lot of theatre, and as a result has inevitably found its way into cinema as well, with many writers and directors taking advantage of the fact that audiences were willing to sit through something that was undeniably more subdued, granted it was worth their time. During the era of New Hollywood, we found several such films being produced, where there wasn’t much need for high-concept storylines or a perpetual sense of excitement or thrilling content. Instead, a quiet, intimate character study could be extraordinarily resonant when given the chance. We can find a superb example of this principle in the form of Desperate Characters, in which Frank D. Gilroy both writes and directs an adaptation of the novel by Paula Fox (who was more well-known for her children’s books, making this a rare work designed for a more mature audience), which tells the story of a married couple living in Brooklyn, following their lives over the course of roughly a weekend, where they have challenging conversations with one another about the state of their marriage (which they both know is declining, although neither is courageous enough to admit it), as well as momentary diversions in which they are apart, in which they engage in deep introspection, questioning not only their own motivations for staying married, but their existence in its entirety, which leads them to a point of philosophical uncertainty and moral despair that starts to erode the idealistic image they had for their lives upon getting married. Complex and beautifully poetic, but also quite challenging in how it addresses some deeper issues that were not common in cinema at the time (while still being socially resonant, based on the authenticity of the subject matter), Desperate Characters is an exceptionally poignant and meaningful depiction of a relationship that has withstood its fair share of obstacles, but has now seemingly entered the stage where such challenges simply cannot be ignored any longer, leading to the conflict at the heart of the story.

Stories about troubled relationships have always existed, and the conflict between couples has been a prominent theme in a number of films. However, there seemed to be an astonishing number of these stories produced in the 1970s, with several romantic dramas being centred on relationships undergoing some kind of challenge, with the key distinction being that many of them didn’t end with a neat, happy resolution, but rather either concluded with a resignation to the banality of a loveless marriage, or ended in a breakup. Ingmar Bergman obviously had the gold standard when it comes to this subject in his masterful Scenes from a Marriage, but surprisingly, many of these same discussions predated that production here in Desperate Characters, which takes a similarly episodic approach to looking at a few key moments in the life of a couple who are trapped in a loveless marriage, but are far too afraid of the realities that come with a divorce to ever admit that their relationship is no longer working. The sexual revolution of the late 1960s may have promoted a more libertine, free form of love and human desire, but the immediate aftermath saw a decline in this liberated sense of passion. Not many films are willing to investigate the correlation between the two eras, and how so many relationships formed during these reckless times fell apart not long afterwards – this is the byproduct of a generation surrendering to their urges, and Desperate Characters investigates what it would be like to still have the same curiosity and burning sexual desires, but to have it contained within a bland, lifeless relationship that has lost all semblance of passion. By the time we meet Otto and Sophie, they are beyond miserable – they’ve simply surrendered to the fact that they no longer love each other as much as they did before, but are also not able to take the leap to end the relationship, instead engaging in sordid affairs that give them the carnal satisfaction that they crave, but not the emotional catharsis, which is far more important. Gilroy works closely with the text to create a harsh but fascinating deconstruction of a marriage that is holding on by the most slender thread, and an unsettling portrait of these two ordinary people whose only expressions of passion come in their moments of hostile conflict, which is implied to be inevitable for any marriage built on instant gratification, rather than a genuine love for one another.

One of the more bespoke traits of Desperate Characters is the pairing of actors in the two leading roles. While this was a period in which many major actors were taking on more challenging, small-scale work, the decision to not cast two titans across from one another, but rather actors from very different backgrounds within the industry adds a level of nuance that would have otherwise been lost in more traditional efforts. Shirley MacLaine was undeniably at the peak of her career at this point – she managed to transition from a lovable young starlet to a legitimately brilliant actor in her own right, someone who may have been shoehorned into a very specific kind of character earlier in her career, but who ultimately fought for better roles, making her one of the landmark figures in the transition between the Golden Age and New Hollywood, both of which she conquered in her own way. Joining her is Kenneth Mars, who is by no means an obscure actor, but as someone more seasoned in the theatre (and where his cinematic endeavours were mainly associated with broad comedy, such as in Mel Brooks’ The Producers), making his casting here particularly intriguing – it felt like a concerted effort to show that he was capable of leading a film, and turning in a very strong dramatic performance, which he had honed on stage in a range of productions. However, he never quite became a household name, mainly due to the fact that he was always seen as someone more appropriately designed as a character actor – but his performance in Desperate Characters proves he had the skillfulness to command the screen, even if the narrative is more aligned with placing MacLaine at the forefront, her personal journey being the concept on which most of the film hinges, making this one of her best performances, and one that is continuously underestimated as a peak in her already varied and complex career that has seen her play every conceivable kind of character.

Desperate Characters is a film that isn’t only built on a strong premise, but also the unique execution of many of its ideas, both those that are explicitly important to the overall narrative, and those that exist on the periphery, factoring into the story but not being important enough to be considered major themes. Few films have been able to capture the middle-class malaise in such vivid detail, to the point where there is nothing particularly disturbing about the domestic life of these two characters, but it still feels quite unsettling. There is a grit to this film that makes it quite effective, but also quietly disconcerting, since these are people that have found that their lives have lost all of the vibrant colours that surrounded them when they first fell in love, and where the current state of their relationship is dictated in various shades of grey, representing the existential ennui they experience in their day-to-day existence. This is a film in which all of the major ideas are represented through a combination of dialogue and quiet moments – the almost total lack of a score creates quite a haunting atmosphere, since we are confronted by only the discordant sounds of a city that surround the characters and instil in them a sense of complete existential dread. This all reveals the darker side of this story, representing the dissonant feelings of sorrow that populate their minds and give them this existential sense of inescapable dread. While the idea of examining the internal psychological state is far more suited for the written page (since the partially stream-of-consciousness style of Fox’s original novel not being perfectly translated to the page), Gilroy does well to infuse this film with the same sense of provocative and complexity, weaving together a haunting but effective depiction of these characters navigating new challenges while working through their own mental and emotional quandaries. It’s obvious that Desperate Characters was directed by someone who made their living in theatre, with the emphasis on dialogue and use of long takes and extended scenes set in a single location indicating a very theatrical mentality – but he is smart enough to expand outside of this, exploring the outside world, which allows for many of the more challenging concepts to emerge in those deafening silences between discussions.

The lack of attention for Desperate Characters has been disheartening since this is a very solid, well-made film with many strong ideas and a sense of complexity that indicates a remarkable amount of depth and nuance, the likes of which we may be surprised to find contained in such a small, relatively unassuming film. It is certainly not a film that has been particularly appreciated, especially in terms of the influx of character-driven dramas that took a more simple approach during this period – and it isn’t helped by the fact that it covers some very bleak subjects, which are far from comforting or endearing, which can sometimes keep us at arm’s length – but as one of the more unheralded writers and directors working at the time, Gilroy handles the material well, and covertly puts together an astoundingly complex, quietly devastating meditation on love and marriage. It is grounded by two extraordinarily complex, detailed performances by a pair of the most gifted actors of their generation, who prove to have exceptional chemistry, even in a film where they are designed to constantly be in some form of combat, whether psychological or emotional. It is a film that is intentionally tense and unnerving, and the use of sexuality to reflect the dark inner state of these characters, who have turned their lustful cravings into the foundation for their failing marriage (rather than being courageous enough to address these issues directly), and now struggle to function in the context of the wider world, being driven by their own insecurities and fears for the future. It’s a harsh, challenging film with many profound ideas, and a sense of deep despair that is constantly being negotiated as the story progresses, leading to an astonishing, powerful character-driven drama that dares to address some very bleak themes, in the hopes of getting to the root of what makes us so unimpeachably human, and the intersections between love and identity, which are far more tenuous than we’d initially imagine.