Introduced by Rob Nilsson

Cassavetes's best-known film garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and for Best Actress for Gena Rowlands's bravura performance as the housewife whose ego is vanquished by the double binds of family life. "Rowlands's Mabel Longhetti is both desperate and courageous enough not to pull back from madness, but to go all the way over into a state of mind that confronts every assumption of her life with her husband Nick (Peter Falk). Perhaps it is this underlying sense of Mabel's intention that makes Rowlands and Cassavetes say they have never considered Mabel insane. She's just, to use Gena's word, 'wacko.' Meaning that Mabel has her own way of seeing the world, and has a right to insist on the validity of her vision....(L)ike Mabel's family, we're trapped in her experience with her....That's what family trouble means...love costs, love demands, but its costs and demands are almost welcome as proof that profound love exists."