NATURAL ENEMIES
Dir. Jeff Kanew, 1979.
United States. 100 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 7:30 PM

Hal Holbrook (ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, RITUALS, FLETCH LIVES) stars as Paul Stewart, a husband, a father, and editor of a science magazine living in West Redding, CT. Stewart is beyond depressed, stuck in a loveless marriage, unable to even recognize the three children he despises, and going through the motions at a job in the city he no longer has any interest in. Full of anger, and feeling ripped off by life, he finds a new obsession in a possible way out of his doldrums. What avenue of recourse does he have to get his failed life back on track? Easy, just murder-suiciding the whole family.

Unrelentingly bleak, nihilistic, and cynical, NATURAL ENEMIES is based on the 1975 book of the same name penned by Julius Horwitz, and directed by Jeff Kanew, who would go on to commit further nonconsensual sexual assaults to screen in 1984’s REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Paul’s wife Mirriam is played by Louise Fletcher, who takes a turn on the other side of the mental health caretaker coin (Nurse Ratched in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST) as a diagnosed manic depressant, and victim of shock treatment.

Shot on location in Connecticut and New York City, NATURAL ENEMIES pulls no punches in its vision of the upper-middle class depression inherent to the bridge and tunnel commuter. Unlike Kubrick’s sexier portrayal of an upper class NYC marriage falling apart, there are no flashy metaphorical secret societies here. Just your normal everyday malice, discontent, and mental illness. But like Kubrick’s, there’s still some group sex to be had.