Minnie & Moskowitz Review

• 28th Mar 2011

Released in 1971, John Cassavetes’ Minnie & Moskowitz is billed as a hilarious romantic comedy that shows a lighter side to the notoriously spiky director. It may well do, but 40 years on it’s hard to know what the average rom-com audience will make of Minnie, barbed as it is with attempted suicide, domestic violence and kidnapping.

Seymour Cassel, who hasn’t changed much since this film came out, plays Seymour Moskowitz, a lovable loser and car enthusiast who has no ambition beyond working as a parking valet. It’s a sign of just how good he is in this role that he can make Moskowitz sympathetic despite the fact that he’s also a slightly deranged creep.

Moskowitz first crosses paths with Minnie (Gena Rowlands) on what has to be one of the roughest days of her life. Abandoned in a restaurant parking lot after the worst lunch date in history, Moskowitz offers her a ride back to work. By ‘offers her a ride’ I mean takes her out for hot dogs, gets offended when she won’t eat, threatens her when she won’t get in his truck (“I swear I’ll bust ya!”) and forcibly restrains her when she tries to get out again. Minnie, who has just turned 40 and been dumped by her violent, married boyfriend (an uncredited Cassavetes) decides to take a chance on the passionate, impoverished Moskowitz and love blooms.

For all her financial security, beauty and career success, needy and insecure Minnie may not be the world’s greatest catch herself so it’s no great head-scratcher that she falls for a guy who declares “I could look at you for 500 years and still find you exciting”. Cassavetes had a rare talent for creating rounded, believable characters and Minnie is a master class in ensemble film making. The dialogue is a treat, even if it is delivered at full volume (Cassavetes did, after all, say that “silence is death”) and each vignette and cameo appearance is a gem.

It may have been a feel-good film 40 years ago, but it’s unlikely that anyone who found PS I Love You or Sleepless in Seattle enjoyable will get a warm fuzzy off Minnie & Moskowitz’s premise that loneliness holds the door open for love. Everyone else will wonder how much more interesting the Bridget Jones franchise would have been if one of the suitors had been a bum with a large moustache and a hyperactivity disorder.

Clare Moody