Maybe audiences in 1969 were scandalized – little Natalie Wood from Miracle on 34th Street in a comedy about polyamory?! – but they bought tickets in droves for Paul Mazursky’s breakout hit. Alongside Robert Culp & Elliott Gould & Dyan Cannon, Wood plays a long-married Californian nudging a toe into the counterculture movement (think: Esalen retreats and sexual liberation). Cited by Olivia Wilde as an inspiration for summer release The Invite, the film is an excellent distillation of the underrated Mazursky’s many talents: long takes, a camera frame bursting with the texture of real life, a tender curiosity about the human condition, and a knack for finding the humor in it. – Kimberley Jones
