Love Streams

What do you think love is? Is love like a stream, moving ever forward? These are among the questions that John Cassavetes asks in one of his final films. It's a film about love and people who have been too beaten by life to even look for it anymore. Cassavetes himself plays a writer of sex novels (not love) who lives in his Hollywood hills home with an entourage of women randomly parading in and out. Gena Rowlands is woman recovering from a divorce and loss of custody of her daughter. Her character begins in some ways where her character from A Woman Under the Influence left off. It's a good film, even if it isn't one of his best. It's a world weary film that understands people and emotion. I wish I could think of more to write about the film, but like much of Cassavetes work, it is a film that must be felt and not explained. It's worth it for the scene in which Rowlands character brings a veritable zoo's worth of animals in a taxi to Cassavetes' Hollywood home.