One of my all time favorites.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Girlfriends, a bittersweet tale of two female roommates split apart when one gets married. The other, our protagonist in this film is all at sea. The two women out of necessity and believe me this is true in New York City came together to share rent. But living together as you do and hitting it off you get to share lives.Melanie Mayron and Anita Skinner are the roommates. Out of the blue one fine day Skinner announces she's marrying Bob Balaban. At that point Mayron is just lost. Mind you there's nothing sexual going on with them, but Skinner can't adjust to now being alone. Even a relationship with Christopher Guest just ain't the same thing as sisterhood.Eli Wallach the old family rabbi and a most modern thinker keeps Mayron employed in her profession as a photographer using her as a wedding photographer. Mayron is pursuing this as an art form as well and here she has the encouragement of museum exhibitor Viveca Lindfors. Will success in her profession fill a lot of the emptiness?Girlfriends is a nice character study from the women's point of view. Not much of a plot but seem character portrayals.

I came across Girlfriends after reading a list of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, and he rightly called it 'wonderful'. Shot in New York in the late 70's, when master filmmakers such as Cassavetes, Scorsese and Woody Allen ruled the cities screens Weill's film went largely ignored and her brilliant lead actress never went on to make another film except for a small role in a B sci-fi thriller. There is an obvious kinship between Weill's style and that of Woody Allen - the nervous Jewish humor, the wit and sharp dialog, but Girlfriends omits the irony and stands on its own as a singular, intelligent story of friendship and troubled relationships told from a uniquely female perspective. Sadly it is very hard to see this film today, No streaming service carries it, and Kim's New York just shut its doors for good. I bought a poor transfer on DVD. I hope Criterion gets around to it one day, because it is truly a wonderful film.

Well-done and engrossing drama of a woman (played by Melanie Mayron) who's living with her best friend. Her best friend decides to get married and move out. It devastates Mayron and she goes on a journey of self-discovery...and trying to find a new roommate.This was a big hit in 1978. It played the art house circuit for quite a while. I saw it when I was 16. Being a guy, I wasn't sure I would like it but I was fascinated. The characters were complex, the story absorbing and showed me what NYC was like (back in 1978). After it died down it disappeared completely. There was a showing on cable back in the early 1980s but that was it. I've asked a few friends who are film fanatics (like me) if they knew about this and none of them had even heard of it! That's too bad. This is a wonderful film for anybody--you don't have to be a woman to understand the loneliness and shock Mayron feels when her best friend leaves. Also it has some casual nudity which was surprising for a PG film. It also has Christopher Guest in an early role (and doing a nude scene--not much is shown).An excellent film. It is available on DVD. The DVD transfer may look grainy but the film always looked like that, It was VERY low-budget.

This movie set in 1978, is a wonderful analysis of women's relationships with their friends and how relationships with men can change their relationships with each other. It is subtle and nuanced and emblematic of the independent films of the 1970's.Claudia Weill was a women who tried to get into that very exclusive circle of directors which are very male. When this movie was made it was considered to be the first of many such independent films by women to try to climb that fortress.The acting of Amy Wright and Melanie Mayron at the time felt like it wasn't acting at all. Since they were both unknowns, you felt like you were snooping into someone's personal lives rather than watching two actresses go through a script.