New York City, 1 9 4 9. Jewish immigrant Herman is stuck in a puzzling situation, in an equidistant affair between three women: he cannot break up with his Polish wife Yadwiga out of guilt since she hid him in a barn and saved him during the Holocaust; he cannot break up with his mistress Masha since she says she is pregnant with him; and on top of all, his long lost wife Tamara, whom he thought died during World War II, shows up again, since she survived being shot at. He cannot say this to any one of the three women, and thus marries Masha. When Herman finds out Masha was lying and she was not pregnant, he decides to leave her. She committs suicide with pills because she wants to be burried together with her deceased mother. Herman disappears, Yadwiga gives birth to his daughter and raises her together with Tamara.
"Micki + Maude + Masha" would be a fitting description of "Enemies, A Love Story", a humorous drama about a love rectangle revolving around a man having an affair not with two, but with three women simultaneously. The director and screenwriter Paul Mazursky crafts this unusual story at first as a "collateral" consequence of the Holocaust, since all of their relationships are an indirect result of it (Herman cannot break up with Polish woman Yadwiga out of guilt since she saved him by hiding him in her barn during World War II, whereas he is shocked to find out his long lost wife Tamara (excellent Anjelica Huston), presumed dead, actually survived the war, and thus he is now in a "marital limbo"), but later on he plays it as "straight" as any given "normal" situation that can happen to any man if he is dishonest and full of betrayal, torn between more love interests. It is disappointing that after this concept is set up, the storyline fails to differentiate into something more, settling only for the standard, conventional and predictable route of Herman constantly going from one woman to another, never knowing what to do, always stalling. Sadly, the writing is hardly more imaginative or inspired than what described at face value, and the dialogue is strangely thin for Mazursky. Some of the best moments are when Mazursky invests some spark into these characters and gives them something unusual to do: for instance, upon hearing about Herman having affairs with two other women, his "presumed dead" wife Tamara actually offers to help him and be his "manager", whereas Herman and Masha have this one inspired dialogue when he finds out she lied to keep him ("You swore to me on a holy oath!" - "I swore falsely"). With a running time of 120 minutes, "Enemies" is too overstretched and features too much empty walk, not quite managing to fill out this tantalizing concept to the fullest.
Grade:++
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