Following his monumentally successful Midnight Cowboy, John Schlesinger once again dipped into the well of alternative life styles for his next film, Sunday Bloody Sunday. What he came up with was pretty daring for 1971 and still relevant to today's world.

Historical Background: Director John Schlesinger was born in London on February 16th, 1926. His father was a Jewish pediatrician. During World War II, Schlesinger developed a magic act for the entertainment of the troops. Later, at Oxford, he performed in student plays. In the fifties, he got some character parts in such films as Oh Rosalinda! and The Battle of River Plate. After making some amateur films, Schlesinger took a job as a director with BBC-TV in 1957. He directed several episodes of the series The Valiant Years about Winston Churchill. Schlesinger's documentary Terminus (1960) won a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival and a BAFTA award.

Schlesinger's debut feature film was A Kind of Loving (1962). In it, Schlesinger applied his keen observational approach to the marriage of a working-class couple from the dreary industrial north of England. Schlesinger's second film, Billy Liar (1963), starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, was a bittersweet look at the fantasy life of an undertaker's clerk. Schlesinger utilized Christie again in his third film, Darling (1965), helping to elevate the actress to stardom when she won the Oscar for Best Actress. Schlesinger followed with Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of a novel by Thomas Hardy.

Schlesinger then went to Hollywood and directed what most observers view as his greatest film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), starring Dustin Hoffman and John Voight. That film won the Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director. Schlesinger's next film was the one reviewed here, Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), which received critical acclaim and as well as notoriety for its frank but nonchalant handling to both a gay relationship and a casual heterosexual one. Schlesinger continued to show versatility as a filmmaker with The Day of the Locust (1975), an adaptation of a novel by Nathaniel West, and Marathon Man (1976), a bona fide thriller. Schlesinger's later films included Yanks (1979), Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), Madame Sousatzka (1988), Pacific Heights (1990), The Innocent (1993), and Cold Comfort Farm (1993). Madame Sousatzka and Cold Comfort Farm are probably the best of Schlesinger's lot from after 1976. Schlesinger underwent quadruple bypass surgery on his heart in 1998 and suffered a stroke in 2000. He died in Palm Springs on July 24th, 2003.

The Story: There's really not much of a plot to this story, other than the basic premise. It's a character-driven film, not a plot-driven one. Dr. Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch), a successful and compassionate Jewish physician in his late forties, and Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), a successful employment counselor in her thirties and separated from her husband, are each having an affair with the same young, bisexual, artist, Bob Elkin (Murray Head). Bob makes no attempt to deceive either of his lovers about the other's existence. This arrangement is not really a conventional long triangle, but more like two parallel love relationships in which Bob is involved. Daniel and Alex would each like a bigger piece of their lover's time and emotions, but Bob is young, carefree, disinterested in commitment, and anxious to get ahead at selling his rather banal artworks (liquid bubbling through glass tubes). Daniel and Alex happen to share the same answering service and the impersonal exchange room, where the operators work, serves as a metaphor for the rather mechanical way in which the lives of these three forlorn characters are linked together.

Specific vignettes are low key and realistic, not very exciting but part of the natural rhythm of life. There are brief romantic interludes of both a heterosexual and homosexual variety. Sex is implied rather than shown explicitly. One of the best scenes involves Bob and Alex babysitting the Hobson children for her friends, Alva (Vivian Pickles) and Bill Hobson (Frank Windsor). The kids are wild, sassy, and unmanageable. The two oldest, only about seven and five by my impression, smoke marijuana, apparently with their parents' concurrence. "It's kept behind the record Tristan and Isolde so we can find it," says the oldest child, Lucy (Kimi Tallmadge). There's a humorous vignette at the employment office where Alex is dealing with an out-of-work executive type, George Harding (Tony Britton), who forges credentials and gets facelifts, but nevertheless complains about the unfairness of being laid off. Alex ends up bedding George rather than finding him a job. There's a well done scene at the Bar Mitzvah of Daniel's nephew in which a relative tries to fix Daniel up with a nice, recently divorced Jewish girl, for probably the umpteenth time in Daniel's closeted homosexual life.

Themes: This film is about the nature of relationships, trying to satisfy one's needs, and whether settling for the proverbial "half-a-loaf" is better than no loaf at all. The film doesn't attempt to drive you toward one conclusion or another. Instead, it presents case histories to stimulate your thinking on the issue. The seventies have been called the "Me decade," so this film predictably features three rather self-absorbed individuals, each looking toward a primary relationship to address their respective needs. Daniel and Alex are competing for the time, attention, and affections of Bob. Each wants more than Bob is prepared to offer. "Perhaps you're spreading yourself too thin," suggests Alex. Bob simply wants to enjoy the companionship of both lovers from time to time without becoming too emotionally involved or committed. There is no right or wrong in how relationships should be structured. There is only compatibility or incompatibility. The individual viewer brings to the viewing experience his or her own set of needs with respect to relationships and may judge the observed relationships accordingly as either satisfactory or not, just as the three principals must decide for themselves.

The standard movie cliché in relation to romantic love is that a young male and female meet, experience a palpable chemistry, fall in love, and live happily ever after. A mature adult who has lived a bit understands that love relationships don't work in that way. Suppose, for the sake of argument, you are single and looking for a life partner, so you sit down and right out a list of your "needs" in relation to a primary relationship. Let's say your list begins with the following: (1) someone to love and respect; (2) a good sexual relationship; (3) shares my desire for a monogamous (or, conversely, an open) relationship; (4) is trustworthy and honest; (5) enjoys socializing to the same extent as I do; (6) wants to have (or not have) children; (7) compatible views on childrearing and religion; (8) interesting conversationalist; (9) similar tastes in music; (10) will share my love for sailing (or yoga, or playing bridge, or the theater); (11) enjoys doing the half of the household chores that I despise; (12) will tend to me when I'm sick or depressed; and (13) loves and respects me and is satisfied with my ability to meet his or her needs. Obviously, that list could be much longer. What are your odds of meeting someone who meets every single item on your "needs" list? Suppose (lucky you) that you do! What are the odds that he or she will still meet all of your needs ten years hence, after each of you has continued to grow and change as a person? The answers, of course, are "slim and none." Any marriage or partnership that starts out with the expectation that either partner will provide for all of the other partner's needs is doomed to fall apart. Every successful long-term relationship is less than a full loaf. Each party in a successful relationship takes what the relationship has to offer, gives what they can in return, and then sets out to address the rest of their needs through other relationships or other aspects of their life.

So, every relationship should be based on some mutually desired exchange and should not be weighted down with the burden of being expected to meet all the needs of either party. On the other hand, since most of us can maintain only one primary relationship, it is foolhardy to embark on one that only meets one or two of our most critical needs. That kind of arrangement leaves one with too many needs to be met external to the primary relationship. A couple that links up exclusively on the basis of a great sexual relationship, for example, usually won't stay together very long. Each of the two parties will need to spend in inordinate amount of time apart from one another in order to satisfy the rest of their needs. Moreover, if the sexual interest or needs of one of the two parties changes, as must inevitably happen, there won't be enough bases left to continue the relationship. In settling on a primary relationship, therefore, people need to recognize that getting the whole loaf is unrealistic but settling for only, say, 10% of the loaf is not going to be good enough. Finding a relationship that meets 80% of your needs is fantastic, 40-60% can be made to work, but 30% or less probably won't. Of course there's a second equally important element in the equation: how well you meet the needs of your partner. Even if you're lucky enough to find the relationship in which you and your partner are both finding 80% of your needs being met, you'll both need to be finding ways to address whichever remaining needs are unfulfilled by the primary relationship. One of the most destructive things you can do to a relationship is to blame your partner for not meeting 100% of your needs. Bob says to Alex, "You keep asking too much." She replies, bitterly, "Caring a lot about someone, is that too much? People who have some time for each other, is that too much?" There are no right or wrong answers to such questions, only personal choices.

Alex's mother states the film's main thesis rather explicitly: "It's not much use to start wanting things of him. I'm not always very good at stopping myself." Alex herself reaches the point of exasperation in her relationship with Bob, declaring emphatically, "I've had it with this business that anything is better than nothing." She adds, "There have to be times when nothing is better than anything." If a relationship meets relatively few of your needs for the time invested in it, you may want to choose to break it off. For Daniel, however, a homosexual in his late forties, options are constrained. "All my life I've been looking for someone courageous, resourceful," he says. He had settled for something a lot less. Daniel concluded that half-a-loaf was better than none. Either settling for a partial loaf or rejecting it can be valid. Each person has to weigh their situation and the pros and cons of continuing with each relationship. Alex's mother says of her relationship to her husband, "You think it's nothing but it's not nothing." The relationships featured in Sunday Bloody Sunday may be emblematic of the alienation and desperation of the England (and America) of the seventies, but the basic issues are universal and apply to both conventional and alternative relationships in every decade and throughout Western civilization (and perhaps beyond). At least Alex and Daniel both have families and friends that keep them going in the absence of the devoted primary relationship that each craves.

The subsidiary theme of Sunday Bloody Sunday has to do with repression of emotions. Each of the three main characters is highly "civilized" and determined not to let their emotions get the better of them. One guest at a party who blows up at her date and makes a scene in front of the entire group is looked at with disdain. Bob, examining some rather dramatic pictures in a magazine, complains to Daniel, "Bludgeoned into feeling something. Can't see being a fanatic, can you?" In the end, some of us are unable to find relationships which taken collectively meet even a fair share of our needs. Under such circumstances, repression of emotions may be the only avenue remaining for maintenance of mental stability. The opening dialog of Sunday Bloody Sunday consists of the line, "Now tell me, do you feel anything at all?" When the image comes into focus, we discover that the line was spoken by a physician, Daniel, while palpating a patient's abdomen. That line of dialog is also a metaphor for the feeling life of the film's two lonely protagonists, Daniel and Alex. Daniel and Alex are both intelligent and appealing individuals, but those resources aren't helping them very much in dealing with their affective deficits. Just like Daniel's patients, Daniel and Alex have to learn to live with chronic ailments that afflict their emotional lives.

Production Values: The screenplay for this film was written by Penelope Gilliatt, a writer and movie critic for The Observer. She worked closely with Schlesinger, since the story was apparently based on a triangular relationship that Schlesinger had himself once experienced. The script's foremost strength is its two fully drawn and intelligent characters with all the depth and complexity of real people. The dialog sounds natural and spontaneous, seemingly springing from the essence of the characters rather than the pen of a writer. Another effective device in the script is a loose association drawn between the shaky emotional lives of the protagonists and the shaky British economy of the time. There's a lot of hand wringing and finger pointing among the ministers as to where the blame lies, but none of that leads to solutions. Alex becomes angry with Bob for his unwillingness to give more, while Bob blames her for demanding too much, but neither viewpoint brings them any closer to compatibility.

The cinematography, provided by Billy Williams, is pretty good, though some scenes were shot with two little illumination for my taste. The film's musical score includes an excerpt from Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte. The trio sung during the closing credits occurs in the opera as two women, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, are watching their respective lovers, Ferrando and Gugliemo, sail way, perhaps forever. The musical selection thus matches the film's development whereby Bob flies off to New York leaving his two forlorn lovers behind. Ron Geesin composed the film's original music.

Two of the three lead performances are world-class and the third is as adequate as the part allowed. Murray Head's character is a basically superficial person, but Head at least did what was required. Peter Finch as Dr. Daniel Hirsh and Glenda Jackson as Alex Greville were brilliant. Jackson has made a career out of roles depicting women at their wit's end or struggling emotionally. She knows how to give life to her roles through each gesture, expression, twitch, and glance. Jackson's other work has included roles in Women in Love (1969), A Touch of Class (1973), The Romantic Englishwoman (1975), Turtle Diary (1985), and Salome's Last Dance (1988). Peter Finch is equally effective with his complex character. Finch, who is straight, admitted to having a bit of difficulty with the passionate, homosexual kiss that he and Head undertake in one scene. "I just closed my eyes," he said, "and thought of England." Finch's resume includes The Detective (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Girl with Green Eyes (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), and Network (1976).

Bottom-Line: The MGM DVD provides a solid 1.66:1 anamorphic transfer from high quality source material. The colors are rich. The monophonic soundtrack is not especially good. There are optional English, French, and Spanish language subtitles. The only extra is a theatrical trailer.

This is one of those films for which an overall rating is rather pointless. The fact of the matter is that various viewers will experience this film as anywhere from a one-star film to a five-star film. The trick, therefore, is for readers to try to anticipate how they are likely to respond to it. The negative case in relation to this film is that is has little plot or action, is slow-paced, and features mostly self-centered, angst-ridden characters in rather ordinary circumstances, such as baby-sitting, going to a hair salon, playing charades at a party, or attending a Bar Mitzvah. The story is just not especially cinematic. If all that sounds boring to you, the film probably will be. The positive case for the film is that it provides an in-depth character study, two great performances, and an adult examination of the nature of relationships in lieu of the fairytale view of romance that films typically provide. There's plenty of stimulation for the intellect in this film, but not much of what would qualify as conventional "entertainment." I'm giving this film four-stars, based on my own response to it, but I recommend that you pay more attention to the positive and negative arguments listed above in deciding whether this film is for you. The British Film Institute ranks this film as the 65th best British film all-time.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age