Two for the Road (1967)

TWO FOR THE ROAD is a tepid, uninspired, faintly depressing "comedy" about a married couple on the edge of divorce who drive through France reminiscing about the past ten years of their marriage. It's like a very, very watered down version of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, minus the tragedy, minus the pain, minus the insights, minus the truth. Yet TWO FOR THE ROAD began life as something very different. Originally entitled "the Big Freakout," the original screenplay meant to showcase the return of screen darling Audrey Hepburn as a fiery vixen of revolution and social change. It was only when Hepburn herself read the script and began having terrible nightmares that the bland, marriage on the rocks story was concocted by studio hacks. The story opens with a preteen Audrey, squatting to urinate on the grave of Winston Churchill, who raped her mother while touring the East End during the darkest days of the London Blitz. Drooling and sneering, a stodgy MP listens to her story, calls her a liar, and then clubs her with an umbrella. Audrey is sentenced to ten years in a sadistic girls reform school. After a montage of lesbian sex, gang violence, and field hockey (all inter-cut with a scorching live UK performance of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets) Audrey emerges from prison at the edge of womanhood, ready (as she puts it) for "loads of men, loads of fun, and loads of destruction!"Albert Finney first enters the film as a young Oxford lad presenting a paper on youth unrest in Britain. When a kindly professor suggests that the lad needs "street research" to "sharpen his insights" the gullible Finney immediately rents a cheap motorcar and goes cruising across the British countryside. The first person he meets is Hepburn, thumbing for a ride in the pouring rain while singing "I Wanna Be Your Man" by the Beatles at the top her lungs. Finney and Hepburn immediately connect, having steamy sex in a barn to the sounds of "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones. But when they wake up in the morning, their car is gone! Hepburn claims to know of a fortune in jewels buried in a nearby churchyard, and she leads Finney on a desperate scavenger hunt that swiftly leads to cannibalism, necrophilia, grave robbing, and blues wailing at a local club, where Audrey sits in as vocalist with the original 1964 lineup of the Animals, reunited for a smoking set that includes "Boom Boom," "House of the Rising Sun," "I'm Crying," and "Send You Back to Walker." At the end of the set, Audrey says quietly, "I died many years ago," blowing her brains out with a concealed pistol just as the police arrive. Back at Oxford, Albert Finney presents his paper on teen violence and street crime to a standing ovation and top marks. Wandering out into the yard, he sees a beautiful wild flower growing up between the bricks, the spirit of Audrey Hepburn set free at last.

A couple (Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn) in the south of France non-sequentially spin down the highways of infidelity in their troubled ten-year marriage.Apparently the story is that Audrey Hepburn was either going to get an Oscar nomination for this film or for her work in "Wait Until Dark", and it went to the latter. This probably, in my estimation, made this film less known in later years (I saw "Wait" years before this one). Either would be good, solid Oscar nominations, but I think they made the right choice.This film has strong performances from Finney and Hepburn playing multiple ages and multiple emotions. The plot is complicated, but not overly so (just enough to really draw some great parallels). Perhaps I should say "complex". Romance turned bad seems to make for a better film than romance left open (as in most romantic comedies) and this film is no exception. The tense situations are harrowing.

Two For The Road came out of nowhere and completely blindsided me. It was a Friday night, I had nothing to do, and this was Hepburn and Donan, who had worked so well together in Charade. I had absolutely no warning of the film I was about to watch, I thought I was watching a charming romantic comedy, and that was somewhat true. I was watching a charming romantic comedy mixed with gut wrenching drama.The story is the marriage of two people Joanna and Mark. They meet when Joanna's choir group gets sick with the chicken pox, leaving only Mark and Joanna unharmed. They both head out on the road to hitchhike falling in love in the process. The film follows their marriage from the beginning all the way to the end, or perhaps just a new beginning.The first thing that I find unique about Two For The Road is it's non-linear narrative. We cut back and forth from the beginning, to the end, to the middle, etc. It keeps the film fresh and exciting and makes the scenes of early love so gut-wrenching as opposed to the later scenes of fighting and pain. This film is not afraid to show two people fall in love at the same time as the fall out of love. Now the performers. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney have the greatest chemistry than I have ever seen. As opposed to her previous films with her falling in love with men 30 years her senior, here the relationship feels perfectly balanced. This is probably Audrey Hepburn's best performance, and one of Albert Finney's greatest.The film balances however on maintaining a balance between the earlier and later scenes and this duty falls mainly upon the director and the writer. The screenplay by Frederic Raphael is wonderful featuring many scenes of wonderful comedy and heartbreaking drama. The direction by Stanley Donan is some of his best.The film however suffers from the classic "hollywood ending" which is taints an otherwise great film, making it instead just very good. I give it 10 stars because it managed to move me in a way I have never felt before. It is a truly great film.

A wonderful,wonderful movie. I saw it first when it was released and could never get enough of it. I try to see it whenever I get the chance. The script by Frederic Raphael is sublime and the direction superb. Donen makes a great job of this movie I love it and his" Charade" also starring AH. All the supporting actors are just that-they support the leads and give the movie the atmosphere it needs to succeed.A special mention for Eleanor Bron who has been sadly underused in film (maybe her choice). One would have expected a film like this to have dated badly but I do not find that-it seems fresh every time I see it. It is funny,touching, romantic and above all witty. A really apt look at a relationship/marriage through several years. It says so much about male/female relationships without hitting its audience over the head with a metaphorical hammer.