Minnie and Moskowitz

An idiosyncratic romance, and a far lighter movie than is usual from Cassavetes. Detailing the problems that background and character bring to a relationship, he creates a captivatingly witty and sympathetic picture of a pair of misfits deciding to make a go of it together despite numerous incompatibilities and adversities. As always, it is the performances that dominate, with their sensitively-felt, naturalistic speech patterns and gestures; and for all its optimism, the film is still centred around a core of loneliness, while Cassavetes also contrasts the difficulties of real life with the idealised glamour purveyed by Hollywood (an attack on the system that could barely accommodate him?). The result is an understated and intimate view of two unexceptional people that is only sentimental when the characters themselves are sentimental.