Nominated for Best Actress (Barbara Streisand), Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Music (Original Dramatic Score) in 1973.
I watched pieces of this movie probably once a week when I was in college. I called myself a movie nerd back then, but hadn't really explored many films that were made before I was born. Sitting down to watch this as an adult brings a lot of realizations and epiphanies; one, that it is very exemplary to my definition of American Cinema in the 1970's. Real. Not opulent. Dirty. None of the costumes or sets jump out at me as memorable, yet those things were singled out as being some of the best in film of the year. The second? People can be wholly unlikeable. That's my favorite aspect of this film, in fact which is very rare for me. Both characters behave shamefully on more than one occasion. I don't know that I would want either one of them to be my friend. But damn do I want them to win. And I don't just want to pick a side for either character to win in one of their many arguments, but I want them to survive as a Them. That a writer can make me root so hard for people I find despicable more often than not, well that's just damn good storytelling.
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