Elaine May × 2
- Mikey and Nicky
- USA1976
- Elaine May
- 106 DCP
- 14A
Screening Dates
- September 13, 2019 6:30
- September 14, 2019 8:35
- September 15, 2019 8:35
“A neglected masterpiece of ’70s American cinema” (Alicia Fletcher, TIFF), Elaine May’s third feature as director, after the comedies A New Leaf and The Heartbreak Kid, is an emotionally harrowing crime drama featuring two superb central performances. Peter Falk and John Cassavetes (regular collaborators in Cassavetes’s own films) play small-time hoods and old boyhood chums. After Nicky (Cassavetes) makes the dangerous mistake of betraying a gangster, he asks Mikey (Falk) for assistance. What follows is a long night of tension and paranoia — and a raw, sometimes painfully funny portrait of toxic friendship and toxic masculinity. Ned Beatty plays a hit man. May shot profligate amounts of footage, went significantly over budget, and had final cut taken away from her. She wouldn’t direct another film for a decade — and that, gulp, was Ishtar! This new restoration was supervised by May herself.
