I believe that Barbra Streisand and the director Irvin Kershner were way ahead of their time when they did this wonderful and great movie which I think it's highly underrated.
I haven't read the novel by Anne Richardson Roiphe yet, but I will that's for sure.
Margaret (Barbra) is a house wife with 2 small children and a husband (a university professor) whom that she really loves. She had given up her studies (journalism). But at the same time she wants more out of life. She's only Mrs. Paul Reynolds and appendix to her husband. And she does not want to lead a life (petit bourgeois) like her mother, sister and the rest of her family. It's also pretty obvious that Margaret has a very strained relationship with her mother who's always criticizing her directly but mostly indirectly, and who's a real master when it comes to manipulation.
Margaret discovers that she's pregnant again and maybe because of a hormone imbalance or a personal crisis she begins to have these bizarre fantasies. Shall she give birth to this child or have an abortion? What about the future and her own development/growing as a person, and there's the pain of giving birth to a child. (The tribe in Africa who has a natural and painless way of bringing children into the world) Does her husband still love her, and does he find her attractive with small boobs or large boobs? Her mother did also have 3 children, and Margaret does NOT want to become like her mother for anything in the world (the family party). The scene with The Black Panthers, where she and they blows up the statue of Liberty is a dream as I see it. Dark or black people in dreams are often a symbol of hidden and unconscious resources in you, and these are men so it's Margaret's own masculine side which wishes to be liberated. It is the statue or liberty, but a statue is stiff and NOT a live that's why it has to go. In her dream or fantasy she realizes that her husband is inside the statue, and by liberating herself (blowing up the statue) she might "kill" him. The scene with Fidel Castro is also very symbolic. Fidel wants to give women "equal rights" but on his and other men's terms, and the fact that his beard is fake (a beard is a symbol of men's strengths) and that his has got tits tells us that this kind of a man is sick (not healthy) and that woman shall not "become men" or a very manly (masculine) butch woman like this Fidel person. The scene at the end of the movie where Margaret is in the hospital to (maybe?) have an abortion is also pure symbolic in many ways. Remember the older doctor who's a transvestite once more we have them theme of man/woman-mix (power/suppression) just as Fidel as half man/half woman contra being yourself and free or at least have your own choice to choose. This is exactly where the movie ends; what does Margaret really choose when she leaves in the yellow cab? That is the question?
I really like how reality/dream or fantasy is floating in and out of each other.
This is how I see this movie questioning; what is it and what does it take to be a free growing and independent woman, and at the same time still being a mother, wife and having a career?
Great and very important questions asked in 1972 (or even today) when the Women's Liberation and the other sexual movements were growing - spreading and tearing down all the conventional barriers that were build on an old fashion tradition and a stiff sex role pattern.
Barbra's acting – the way she looks – and the scenes with the children are simply breathtaking.
I haven't read the novel by Anne Richardson Roiphe yet, but I will that's for sure.
Margaret (Barbra) is a house wife with 2 small children and a husband (a university professor) whom that she really loves. She had given up her studies (journalism). But at the same time she wants more out of life. She's only Mrs. Paul Reynolds and appendix to her husband. And she does not want to lead a life (petit bourgeois) like her mother, sister and the rest of her family. It's also pretty obvious that Margaret has a very strained relationship with her mother who's always criticizing her directly but mostly indirectly, and who's a real master when it comes to manipulation.
Margaret discovers that she's pregnant again and maybe because of a hormone imbalance or a personal crisis she begins to have these bizarre fantasies. Shall she give birth to this child or have an abortion? What about the future and her own development/growing as a person, and there's the pain of giving birth to a child. (The tribe in Africa who has a natural and painless way of bringing children into the world) Does her husband still love her, and does he find her attractive with small boobs or large boobs? Her mother did also have 3 children, and Margaret does NOT want to become like her mother for anything in the world (the family party). The scene with The Black Panthers, where she and they blows up the statue of Liberty is a dream as I see it. Dark or black people in dreams are often a symbol of hidden and unconscious resources in you, and these are men so it's Margaret's own masculine side which wishes to be liberated. It is the statue or liberty, but a statue is stiff and NOT a live that's why it has to go. In her dream or fantasy she realizes that her husband is inside the statue, and by liberating herself (blowing up the statue) she might "kill" him. The scene with Fidel Castro is also very symbolic. Fidel wants to give women "equal rights" but on his and other men's terms, and the fact that his beard is fake (a beard is a symbol of men's strengths) and that his has got tits tells us that this kind of a man is sick (not healthy) and that woman shall not "become men" or a very manly (masculine) butch woman like this Fidel person. The scene at the end of the movie where Margaret is in the hospital to (maybe?) have an abortion is also pure symbolic in many ways. Remember the older doctor who's a transvestite once more we have them theme of man/woman-mix (power/suppression) just as Fidel as half man/half woman contra being yourself and free or at least have your own choice to choose. This is exactly where the movie ends; what does Margaret really choose when she leaves in the yellow cab? That is the question?
I really like how reality/dream or fantasy is floating in and out of each other.
This is how I see this movie questioning; what is it and what does it take to be a free growing and independent woman, and at the same time still being a mother, wife and having a career?
Great and very important questions asked in 1972 (or even today) when the Women's Liberation and the other sexual movements were growing - spreading and tearing down all the conventional barriers that were build on an old fashion tradition and a stiff sex role pattern.
Barbra's acting – the way she looks – and the scenes with the children are simply breathtaking.