Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Girlfriends Blu-ray Movie Review

Neither of them sings.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 14, 2020

It might seem intuitively obvious that a woman might be best poised to make a film about women and how they establish and maintain friendships, and yet it might be hard for many (as it is for me) to think of many examples of a film dealing at least tangentially about this very subject which was helmed by a woman, before Claudia Weill's Girlfriends debuted in 1978. I guess a case might be made for some of Agnès Varda's films like Cléo from 5 to 7 and/or One Sings, the Other Doesn't (available in the immense set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda , also released by The Criterion Collection), but in the case of at least the first named Varda film, there's a whimsical, almost magical realist, element at times that may tend to divorce the proceedings from more cinéma vérité suffused sensibilities. One Sings, the Other Doesn't may be one of the better analogs, at least within Varda's oeuvre, in that it, like this film, features some subtext involving still photographs. (Kind of interestingly, in one of the supplements included on this disc, Claudia Weill singles out Jean Luc Godard as a prime influence, and many will of course know of the long relationship, sometimes fractious, between Godard and Varda.) With regard to a vérité ambience, though, the fact that Claudia Weill came to this project after years in the documentary idiom means that Girlfriends tends to be more "down to earth" in how it offers an assessment of a sometimes dysfunctional relationship between two young women, aspiring photographer Susan Weinblatt (Melanie Mayron) and would be writer Anne Munroe (Anita Skinner), who is, at least as the film begins, Susan's roommate in a rather cramped New York apartment.

There's a subgenre of anime called "slice of life" where frankly not much in the way of epochal events ever happens, and in some ways Girlfriends certainly fits snugly within that template. It's also vignette driven in much the same way "slice of life" anime often are, with a series of interchanges that tend to arguably move the story forward, but which are often microcosmic displays of Weill's overarching concerns with how Susan in particular matriculates some "life changes" in both career and personal relationships. Kind of interestingly, at least within the confines of what might be seen as "feminist filmmaking", the two BFFs at the center of Girlfriends have their first real challenge when Anne ultimately moves out and then marries a guy named Martin (Bob Balaban).

In the meantime, the film also deals quite a bit with Susan's career challenges. She manages to make ends meet by photographing events like Bar Mitzvahs, but she yearns to achieve something more meaningful and long lasting. She seems to be on the verge of success early in the film, a hoped for "happy ending" that is initially dashed. There's also a somewhat curious subplot involving Susan's probably questionable romantic feelings for an elderly rabbi named Aaron Gold (Eli Wallach) who, it turns out, is married. There's probably some subtext that scenarist Vicki Polon may be offering here in terms of a supposed arbiter of morality being willing to stray himself, but the film deals with this aspect more as a coming to terms with growing up and realizing personal mistakes from Susan's point of view than as any kind of "meta" analysis.

The film does offer a number of small but effective pleasures along the way, including a fun chance to see both Bob Balaban and Christopher Guest (who plays another potential suitor to Susan, named Eric) relatively early in their careers. There's an interesting piece of stunt casting as well, though many may not be aware of it. Viveca Lindfors is on hand as a gallery owner whom Susan deals with, but that's Lindfors' real life son Kristofer Tabori also in the film in a small role as Charlie by her side. Weill offers a realistic depiction of "life in the big city", even if Polon's dialogue can be a little forced and unnatural on more than one occasion.

Girlfriends Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Girlfriends is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The insert booklet included with this release contains the following information on the transfer:

Girlfriends is presented in director Claudia Weill's preferred aspect ratio of 1.66:1 [sic]. On standard 4:3 televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On standard and widescreen televisions, black bars may also be visible on the left and right to maintain the proper screen format. This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director film scanner at Deluxe EFILM in Hollywood from the 16 mm A/B roll original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI Film's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for jitter, flicer, small dirt, and noise management.

The original monaural soundtrack was remastered from a magnetic track using Avid's Pro Tools and iZotope RX.

While this is almost a paradigmatic example of low budget independent film, with its attendant smaller format source, the transfer here is hugely appealing almost all of the time. Yes, things are very heavily grainy a lot of the time, especially in some of the more dimly lit interior scenes, but for the most part grain resolves beautifully and organically. The palette is also very nicely suffused, with some reds in particular popping very well. I felt that things were just a bit peach colored at times in terms of things like flesh tones, but not to a point where I would consider anything looking really unnatural. There are some fluctuations in clarity and fine detail levels, sometimes coupled with slight focus pulling anomalies. I noticed no compression issues and no real damage or other age related wear and tear of any major import.

Girlfriends Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Girlfriends features an LPCM Mono track which provides more than capable support for the film's kind of "fly on the wall" sound design. Essentially a talk fest, Girlfriends' dialogue always sounds clear and clean in this rendition, and the use of both ambient environmental sounds courtesy of an often busy urban environment as well as scoring encounter no problems whatsoever. Optional English subtitles are available.

Girlfriends Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Claudia Weill (1080p; 26:46) is a really interesting piece done with Weill in New York in 2019. I kind of only half jokingly say I wish Weill had directed this, since there are some perplexing edits that suddenly offer new camera perspectives of the director, for no apparent reason.


• Vicki Polon (1080p; 12:32) is a 2020 interview with the screenwriter.


• Girlfriends: A Look Back (1080p; 16:00) might be the biggest draw in the supplements department for some fans, since it features a Zoom-like assortment of folks including Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban and Claudie Weill.


• Claudia Weill and Joey Soloway (1080p; 22:13) is another Zoom-ish thing offering ' a fun conversation between the two filmmakers.


• City Lights (1080i; 19:49) is a 1978 television episode of a Canadian talk show, featuring Claudia Weill and Melanie Mayron being interviewed by host Brian Linehan.


• Joyce at 34 (1080i; 27:49 ) is a 1971 documentary by Joyce Chopra and Claudia Weill which looks at how pregnancy and childbirth affected Chopra's career.


• Commuters (1080i; 3:42) is a 1970 documentary by Claudia Weill and Eliot Noyes focusing on its title subjects.

A typically well appointed insert booklet from Criterion includes essays by Molly Haskell and Carol Gilligan, as well as cast and crew information, technical data and some stills.

Girlfriends Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Girlfriends may be almost willfully slight at times, but it delivers some honest emotion, and it certainly provides a fantastic showcase for the always wonderful Melanie Mayron. Some of the dialogue struck me as even clunkier than I had remembered it as being from my first viewing of the film decades ago, but the overall feeling here is heartfelt and actually rather sweet. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package very enjoyable. Recommended.