Petulia
(1968)
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A prominent San Francisco surgeon's life is turned upside down when he falls in love with an eccentric young woman caught in an unhappy marriage with a sadistic man. Can this odd couple's love transcend the conventions of their upper-class world? |
Few directors embraced the technical trickery of the French New Wave with as much enthusiasm as Richard Lester. But the kind of narrative leap-frogging and camera eccentricity that worked a treat on A Hard Day's Night is something of a distraction in this Swinging Sixties story in which freewheeling Julie Christie cheats on dullard husband Richard Chamberlain with divorced surgeon George C Scott. Shot in San Francisco at the height of flower power, the film has dated just a tad, but Christie and Scott make a surprisingly potent couple and Joseph Cotten shows well as Chamberlain's blustering father.