What a beautiful movie!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Newlywed San Francisco socialite Petulia Danner (Julie Christie) is bored with her husband naval engineer David (Richard Chamberlain). She aggressively flirts with Dr. Archie Bollen (George C. Scott) at a hospital fundraiser. He is about to finalize his divorce from Polo (Shirley Knight). She's fixated on him after bringing in the Mexican boy Oliver into the hospital. She continues to stalk him despite the fact that he's dating May (Pippa Scott). It's a mystery as David's dark side and his abusive father (Joseph Cotten) are revealed.The movie is disjointed with flashbacks and forwards. The quick flashes are too experimental and are better off extracted from the movie. There is something interesting with the disjointed structure being attempted here. It doesn't really work at the beginning, but it becomes more fascinating as more is revealed. It makes me ache to put the pieces together. Yet it struggles at times. I think Oliver's story is interesting which makes it a grind to follow Archie in the present.

Some reviewers have complained that PETULIA is a bit of a downer-- that it is a little too depressing to watch. But this movie is not supposed to make you feel good...it's supposed to make you think about life and relationships. Lead actress Julie Christie is superb as always and so is her costar, George C. Scott. In a supporting role, Richard Chamberlain adds an interesting element to the proceedings, as does Joseph Cotten in an extended cameo as his father. The film's jagged time line keeps its viewer on tenterhooks, wondering where Julie Christie's character will end up in this story about post-traumatic stress and recovery. Great, provocative cinema.

spoiler alert this movie is psychologically right on. petulia is in a bad marriage with bad in-laws, and archie is her way out. archie almost rescues her, but not quite. her indirectness and whimsy mask a good heart. "why didn't you come get me when you had the chance?" is the tragedy of the movie. she does rescue him: under her influence, he grows from angry, bitter, and alienated to lively and engaged - most vividly with his kids. but not present enough soon enough to take the stand of rescuing her and she stays in her compromise marriage.i'm not troubled by the flashbacks at all. they are straightforward, easy to follow, and mostly appear as memories would. much easier to follow than a soderberg movie like "the limey" - which i also liked - in which time is presented at the director's taste. in this movie we (mostly) see subjective time; the characters view the present and are triggered into the past.

Tonight was my first ever viewing of this film by Richard Lester. As the movie began, I was somewhat thrown off, as the editing is somewhat "jumpy" and the story is presented out of sequence, so it's rather like pieces of a puzzle coming together. The film is both set and shot in 1967 San Francisco and does a beautiful job presenting what it was like there at that time (or, at least how I imagined things were, as I wasn't around at that time.) The first scene is just flat out bizarre: A dance for car accident victims being held in the lobby of a posh-looking San Francisco hotel. The guests all looking very mod yet rich and "establishment," many of them over 50. And the live band providing the entertainment is none other than San Francisco's own Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin on lead vocals. There's a shot of an elderly woman in a wheelchair, dressed and coiffed beautifully, with her neck in a tortuous looking brace being pushed quietly through a service area on her way to the festivities and then a quick, jarring cut to James Gurley, one of Big Brother's guitarists, playing a psychedelic riff, then a quick cut back to the woman in the wheelchair, then back to the lobby floor festivities where Joplin is singing at the top of her lungs next to Sam Andrews playing guitar whilst well-dressed party goers (looking very decidedly unlike a typical Big Brother crowd,) boogie all around them.What a way to start a film! I was initially distracted, but soon enough the characters began to emerge and the story unfolded. The main characters include George C. Scott as a newly divorced 40ish doctor and the incredibly beautiful Julie Christie as a newly married 20ish "kooky" character who decides somewhere between Big Brother's "Road Block" and "Down On Me" that she's going to have an affair with the good doctor.Despite the rather raucous and disjointed beginning, this film does have an interesting plot, as it turns out; one just has to be patient as it slowly and tantalizingly begins to unfold. Nothing is as it seems at first, and there are plenty of surprises in store.Also featured in the cast are the wonderful Shirley Knight, who gives a powerhouse performance, and Richard Chamberlain in a very off-beat role for him.I didn't know where the film was going for awhile. But I think that is one of its many charms: It's unpredictability. I would highly recommend this to anyone who appreciates something different and thought-provoking. 9/10