I know, this is just a small movie, but one that I'm able to see again and again, mainly because of little things as the bright blue sky upon Mia Farrow eating an apple or the original egg-cups in Dustin Hoffman's kitchen. It's difficult to explain but I love every moment of this movie without a strong reason: this is to me as an old family photo, not perfect, but still so dear... Then: good actors, original script, with refreshing ironic touches, and really beautiful set.
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erica-1428 July 1999
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ferbs5410 June 2009"It's Not Your Mother's Love Story," the ads for "John and Mary" proclaimed, and I suppose that back in 1969, such indeed was the case. Telling the story of a one-night stand and the rainy day after, as the couple in question gets to know one another in the guy's spacious apartment at 52 Riverside Drive (in actuality, a 15-floor, redbrick building at 78th St. whose asking price today must be astronomical!), the film certainly must have engendered some controversy, back when. Fortunately, this sweet, realistic, adult slice of life, though certainly a product of its time, is not as dated as one might expect, and the tentative, uncertain steps that John and Mary (whose names we never know until the picture's final moments) take when learning about each other should seem familiar to even Gen Y'ers. This process of discovery is accomplished mainly through talk, but the viewer gets to know the two characters even better, via flashbacks, fantasy sequences and their voiced-over thoughts. In the leads, Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow are quite fine, and director Peter Yates brings his picture in with great sensitivity. The trio had recently participated in three enormously successful films--"The Graduate," "Rosemary's Baby" and "Bullitt," respectively--and while "John and Mary" is certainly a smaller film than those others, it is still of great interest. Hoffman and Farrow were immensely ingratiating screen presences at this early stage of their careers, and their unique pairing here makes this film something special. And speaking of early-career performances, "John and Mary" also features Tyne Daly, Cleavon Little and Olympia Dukakis, all in small but amusing parts. Anyway, it is my feeling that viewers of this film will gradually come to really like John and Mary, and root for them as a couple, and wish them many more nights together....
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MarieGabrielle27 December 2007and one night stands in NYC. Not the most original, or flattering, either. Which is perhaps where the film and theme deserves credit.
Farrow is understated, Dustin Hoffmman his usual self (think Kramer vs Kramer) However for the subject matter, the film does succeed on several levels.
Farrow remembers her pointless affair with a politician (Michael Tolan) who often played these roles. Hoffman was in a previous relationship with Sunny Griffin (a has-been model) who takes him for granted.
Overalll a time piece which shows some shallowness, awkwardness, and the hopes of those, still attempting relationships. The human factor is what redeems the story. 8/10. -
hernanjp24 July 2003Remember the days when we were all having free sex and enjoining our elders to make love-not war? Well, if you long for those days or would just like to see what they were like, a good way to telescope back to `those thrilling days of yesteryear' would be to watch John and Mary.
This wonderful little gem from the height of the Sexual Revolution era is about young people trying to connect after the sex part is done.
The story begins on the morning after the night before when two strangers awake together in bed. A delightful, youthful Mia Farrow is compelling, bright, sexy and very appealing as Mary. Dustin Hoffman as John is excellent. The story unfolds as the two young characters struggle toward mutual understanding and respect. As they do, I could easily imagine myself among a theater audience in 1969 all rooting for them to succeed.
The script is intelligent and the flashbacks very effective and interesting.
If you like a mature story emphasizing superb character development with fully-realized, appealing characters, this is for you. I give it four stars-my highest rating! But don't try to get this on video or DVD because as far as I know they are not available. You have to wait for it to be shown on cable or at your local art house theater. -
A single man and woman (Dustin Hoffman as John, Mia Farrow as Mary), having met in a bar the night before, wake up in bed "the morning after"; they go back and forth on where they should take their 'relationship'. The two charismatic leads try to enlighten a curiously flat screenplay from John Mortimer, adapting the novel by Mervyn Jones, and an uncharacteristically low-keyed direction from Peter Yates. It isn't easy: the sluggish narrative (often flashing back in time) and sterile atmosphere make it practically impossible. Still, Yates' work is fluid, with flights-of-fancy to help fill in the gaps, and the stars look just beautiful in their prime. Farrow's Mary is all over the place: guarded and vague (and a little rude), she then turns sheepish and huggable; Hoffman's John is suspicious and cynical, but yielding. Some of their thoughts and emotions ring true--and if finale is pure fantasy, at least it is well done and satisfying, breaking us out of the rut of fashionable cynicism that most of "John and Mary" occupies. **1/2 from ****
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morrison-dylan-fan10 January 2011For a good part of 2010,a family friend would mention to me how when ever he sees an interview with Dustin Hoffman,this film seems to never be mentioned at all,even though it was made during the "Golden Decade" (the 70s")and that it also has a very good cast & crew.So,around November I went looking round for the film as a Christmas present.And though it has sadly not come out in the UK,I was luckily able to find a copy of the film from the states.
When it arrived,I felt that since it had taken a good amount of time to find the film,that it was worth watching to see what it was all about.
The plot:
After having spent the night together,two people (John and Mary,who both don't know each others names)wake up in bed together.When they both go down stairs,so John can cook some breakfast,they both start to think of each other in a very cynical way.This is because they both usually run off right away after having spent the night with someone,which is partly done,because they have had some very disappointing relationships in the past.
As Mary starts to see how much of a "boring" bachelor lifestyle John has (staying inside,cooking and listening to Brass Band music as he looks out of his windows )Whilst she mainly wants to be a very outgoing type of person.Though she stays round at Johns place a lot longer than she would have anticipated (which she decides to use,to ask him about some of his past relationships.)And at the point,where it seems that both of them might like the relationship to keep going and to become more meaningful,Mary suddenly disappears!.
Although John knows what part of the city she lives in (although he has not got the flats number,or address.)Since he did not think of taking a photo of her,or asking what her name is,the only thing that John does know,is that it is going to be a very long night,on his search to meet Mary again.
View on the film:
One of the things that stuck out most to me about the film,was how surprisingly quiet director Peter Yates (who sadly died just two days after I had viewed this great film) had made the film.Yates does very well at showing the slight nervous awkwardness that the two main characters have around each other when they awake,with hints given with the mood of the film,that they both perhaps,would like this to be a deeper relationship.
With the screenplay by John Mortimer (which is based on the book by Mervin Jones) giving John and Mary some excellently cynical lines,especially in the clever narration of the film,which is done so the whole audience knows what they both REALLY think of each other (and oddly,I feel that parts of the narration in the film,may have inspired some scenes of the excellent anti- ROM-com film (500) Days of Summer.)With a good portion of the film being set in one flat,the performances of Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow make the small flat,almost feel like a mansion.
Hoffman first shows John as someone who is completely happy with their routine in life,into some one who seems to really be trying to get out of his comfort zone,when it seems that he might be about to lose something special.For her performance,Farrow does really well at showing Marys outgoing personality change,as she starts to realise that she really likes John,and that she does not need to pressurise him in a forceful way.
Final view on the film:
An excellent,"quiet" movie,with some witty lines,two very good leads and great directing from the late Peter Yates. -
bkoganbing26 August 2014Dustin Hoffman was one role post his Oscar nominated Midnight Cowboy and Mia Farrow was one role away from her groundbreaking Rosemary's Baby when they were teamed for John And Mary. It's a film typical of the times, hook up first and then get to know each other.
Mia's already got an involvement with a public official played by Michael Tolan who takes off on surreptitious rendezvous only to pack her off when word of the wife or any and all of his 6 kids are around. As for Hoffman he's got a cornucopia of issues most of them centering around his mother played here by Olympia Dukakis.
John And Mary is chronicling the Sixties sexual revolution and at least what we see of Hoffman and Farrow's characters they would certainly be recognized by today's audience. Of course there weren't a lot of sexually transmitted diseases then, when they burst on the scene that made a lot of people act more prudently than John And Mary seem to.
I never really got into the characters in this film. Still it's a good time snapshot of New York on the cusp of the Seventies. -
For most of the movie, quite frankly, I was so bored I dosed off about five times. Once the end of the movie neared, however, I started to like it. Of course, my DVR has a habit of only liking to record the first hour and twenty-five minutes of things, leaving me with the need to buy the movie just to skip everything and watch the last five minutes.
A brief synopsis of the film would be that Dustin Hoffman, an emotionally challenged, furniture designer, and Mia Farrow, a worker at an art gallery, meet at a bar, then have sex, and spend the next day in his apartment, talking and thinking about themselves and their past-loves. Eventually, she leaves, never learning his name and him never learning hers and, they eventually meet again when he tries to find her, but discovers her in his own home instead, and they begin to date (thanks to my television, I'm guessing, so don't take my word for it).
All together, the movie is strangely cohesive and an interesting view on the romance of two romantically blunt people.
Buy the movie and WATCH it, I know I have to. -
maxren1711 November 2005I saw this film when it opened in 1969. My memory may be clouded by the past, but I remember enjoying the teaming of Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman very much.
Both actors are very good in this movie. It's a small intimate two character story and depicts the "one-night" stand morals that were just beginning to take hold.
The conceit is they don't ask each other's name until the end.
Mia had just completed "Rosemary's Baby" and Dustin had "The Graduate." They were young and especially successful as actors.
I highly recommend it, if you can find it. -
Sylviastel1 May 2013Mia Farrow still had the Vidal Sassoon hairstyle from the Rosemary's Baby in this film production. She played Mary, a single New Yorker who lived in Turtle Bay section of New York City. She meets John played by Dustin Hoffman. They have one night together after meeting in a New York singles bar. When they wake up the next morning, they have a lot to learn about each other. Neither John nor Mary are baggage free. The New York City locations add to the film's scenic appeal. The performances from Farrow and Hoffman are believable and genuine. The relationship between these two characters are realistic and believable. Too bad, we didn't see more of Olympia Dukakis, Marian Mercer, Tyne Daly, and Alix Elias in the film. This film is a character study of an unlikely couple.
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Creepy film takes place in a vacuum. Though there are location shots of late 60s NYC, the atmosphere feels like the NYC of I Am Legend. Hot off of Rosemary's Baby and The Graduate, Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman play 2 characters who have nothing to offer each other or the audience and who seem to take forever to do whatever it is they do. Does anyone want these 2 to get together? Pete Yates directed this weird yawner complete with dull performances, zero pacing and pointless flashbacks and a script with less meat on its bones than the film's leading lady. Advertised as a love story, John and Mary with its endless, tedious, narcissistic self-analysis feels more like David and Lisa.
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English_roG10 May 2004This is an all but forgotten little gem by Peter (Bullit) Yates, who uses a sensitive and witty script by the excellent John Mortimer.
The direction, acting, and general tone are near perfect. Alas it was probably super cool for a year or two after it's release and nothing dates like 1960s high fashion.
You may catch it on a late night TV channel - if so, postpone your bedtime for 90 minutes or so and enjoy!
Last thought - This film may have been the source for Woody Allen's famous and celebrated "subtitles" scene in Annie Hall, made several years later with Mia Farrow. -
krusadk21 March 2022Fresh off The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy and Rosemary's Baby, Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow were big stars, when this movie came out in 1969.
It is also far removed from those above-mentioned movies.
A sweet little romantic dramady, mostly taking place in an apartment, where the two stars do shine.
One big problem is the voice-over. Irritating and unnecessary - and therefore it only just sneaks to a 7 on the IMDB 10 scale. -
HotToastyRag17 September 2017Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman play a young couple who have had a one-night stand. The entire movie takes place during the dreaded and infamous "morning after", but many scenes are shown in flashback. While I usually criticize movies that rely on a nonlinear storyline and flashbacks, John Mortimer's script made some very interesting choices. While Mia and Dustin talk over breakfast, the conversation triggers a memory in one of them and cues a flashback. Some might find this disjointed, but others might see the realism in it. Words trigger memories, and before we know it, we're lost in another thought while real life continues.
I didn't end up liking John and Mary; in fact, I found it pretty unpleasant. Both characters, in the awkward light of day, struggle to get to know each other, and often speak internally as a reaction to what they're learning. Since I'm a girl, I'm a little biased to be on Mia Farrow's side. Dustin Hoffman's internal monologues show that he isn't a nice person. He judges her, assumes her behavior, regrets her affection, and is disappointed when she doesn't immediately leave. Why is it entertaining to watch Mia try and get to know someone like that? -
divamom22219 February 2000This is a simple, charming movie about two people with "baggage" from past relationships who happen to find each other (and in the process, the possibility of true love and contentment) amid the insanity of NY and a frenetic existence. Both lead actors are charming - particularly Mia Farrow - who has a waifish, far-away look in her eyes. My favorite part of the movie was when "Mary" left "John's" apartment and he realized she didn't leave a number, so frantically searched the city for her.
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Boy and girl meet. They go to his apartment, do the naughty and then play with each other's neurotic wits. Wonderfully underplayed by the cast. A cute simple story with interesting editing, photography, art direction, music and even directing.
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heinzrogel13 February 2017Oh where are the snows of yesteryear...
This is Peter Yates's tribute to the spirit of films by Truffaut, Godard and Rohmer. With Mia Farrow as Anna Karina and Dustin Hoffman as Jean-Pierre Léaud.
A movie that radiates a wonderful atmosphere, at least for those who like feeling with the hearts and thinking in the minds of lovers - and sometimes denigrate their feelings and then regret what they denigrated and then denigrate it again...
But it's an American love story all the same. With American actors who do not try to imitate their French role models. Mia Farrow is Mia Woodhouse from "Rosemary's Baby" and Dustin Hoffman is Ben Braddock from "The Graduate".
This movie doesn't need a plot and in fact it hasn't got one. So, for once, the flashbacks and the interior monologues thrown into the dialogues and the inserts from thoughts and dreams and memories, all of these cinematic devices that are designed to keep the viewer interested and mostly just confuse him, here they contribute to the movie's ambiance.
You should watch it with your lover by your side. -
Xanadu-229 November 2004It had everything going for it, the hottest young stars of the late sixties, Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow, fresh from the successes of the Graduate and Rosemary's Baby. The director had just made the huge hit Bullit and the hopes were very high, the two stars were on the cover of Time magazine!
It was set in swinging New York, nice photography, cool apartments and clothes, it had to be a hit, right?
What went wrong?????? The script, I suppose. They hadn't considered that it had to say something. Instead we are treated to lots of meaningful looks from the leads. Though, they are good looking....
Is it a comedy? Hard to tell, funny it wasn't. In fact it's dullsville! Quite embarrassing at times.
It seems under-rehearsed, as if the actors had only read the script once. Mia Farrow is too mannered doing her little-old-lady-in-a-girls-body routine. Surprisingly Dustin doesn't overact.
This film disappeared from sight. Ms. Farrow hardly mentions it in her biography. Does anyone remember it? -
LOVEfords3 May 2005This is a fine little movie. It is a great commentary at the way young singles acted out their lives at the start of the anything-goes ME era. It's worth watching just to hear Mia say that line about breakfast. I remember at the time it was released that Dustin Hoffman was a bit unconvincing as a swinging single, since it had only been about 3 years since Mrs. Robinson seduced him after he spent the afternoon floating around the family pool. When you watch "John and Mary", enjoy the great on-location filming, and keep a sharp lookout for when the two title characters actually introduce themselves by name to each other, lest you miss this touching moment.
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This is a low-key, easy going and wonderfully realistic movie, about how people react to one another when they are trying to begin a relationship out of nothing. John and Mary meet each other, have sex and wake up knowing next to nothing about each other. Mary has her history of relationships where she wasn't valued and John has history with feeling abandoned and used.
We follow them throughout their day, hear and see their thoughts and begin to understand why they say and do, the things they do in regards to each other.
Their cognitive distortions are apparent and made entertaining by the movies style and humor.
This movie is under-rated and possibly misunderstood. If you are looking for a ridiculous, meaningless, romantic comedy, full of pop songs and cliched plot twists, you'll have to look elsewhere. But if you are looking for a laid-back, emotional piece of life, then this movie will be one to see.
9 out of 10. -
Hitchcoc8 March 2017We have become a bit jaded with our access to movies these days. There was a time when I would get home from work really late and just turn on the late show. It didn't matter if I had heard of the movie being shown. I started watching this at 11:00 p.m. and knew I had to get up early. But I was hooked. I had seen Hoffman in "The Graduate" and was intrigued by Mia Farrow. This is such a gentle story, a slice of life. It was so real the way they acted on impulse and then began questioning their judgment. What is really interesting is that there was never anything sleazy or smug about the presentation. The actors are superb and handled it delicately, exposing fears and fragility. Take a chance and get this from Amazon or Netflix. You won't be sorry.
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neiljgordon6 February 2008I saw this movie in the theater when first released. It so accurately captured that time, when the Sexual Revolution was in full swing, and couples woke up together knowing virtually nothing about each other. That's how this movie opens; they don't even know each other's first name. Through flashbacks to the night before, you see Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow trying so hard to be cool yet successful in the frenzied meat market of the Friday night Manhattan bar scene. The morning has the two of them waking together and trying to navigate conversation, while we also hear their thoughts as they agonize over how their last statement must have sounded. The awkwardness of getting acquainted, what to ask, what not to ask, how to say it, is so genuine and palpable. At that time, the West Side was not gentrified the way it is now, so Mia describes where she lives as "a very respectable neighborhood...it only has one or two stabbings a week". The ending is asking each other's name. Sex first, names last, it's 1969.
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hasosch29 April 2009There are movies where people feel that they are underrated. Many of the comments that have been written suspect this for "John and Mary". Moreover, when a movie is built on dialectical experiments, thus focusing communicative structures, very easily the impression rises that the plot is thin or the story more or less absent. Neither of that is the case in "John and Mary".
John and Mary meet one night in a New Yorker Bar. They are attracted to one another. The next scene shows them already in the morning in John's apartment. He is still lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, in reality watching Mary sniffling around his photos, drawers and other personal belongings. The director did without the usual "bridge"-scene, where He asks Her if she wants to come for a drink up to him, and so on. Why tell? We see it in all other movies where such scenes happen.
Then the scene changes to breakfast. John is explaining to Mary that he buys organic farmer's eggs - it be worth the extra-trip. She thinks: Aha, a health-guru! The specialty is now that we hear what she thinks. She quietly comments everything he says and does. This goes so far that one time he really assumes that she sad something. She denies. How did he come to such an idea? Because he, too, is commenting what she is doing. However, he does it differently. She listens basically to what he is saying. He looks basically how she is behaving (according to a quip by Oscar Wilde). And so, what we see as voyeurs and not so much as audience (audire = "to hear, listen"), is an extremely complex network of flashbacks and flash-forwards, of what did happen in the past of John and Mary and of what may or may not happen in their common or not common future. Guessing a situation for the present means to extrapolate it into the future by using a strange mixture of logic and everyday's experience.
The most amazing situations in the movies are there, where one person who makes a flash, is called back in "reality" by inference of the other person. One has the impression that the face of this person fits still to what she was thinking and not to the real situation on which she did not participate. So, there is an "imaginary rest" on the face of the called person, and this imaginary rest can influence enormously the whole ongoing situation by influencing the reaction of the calling person.
This is, very broadly drawn, the content of this extraordinary movie, played by two of America's most gifted actors. In the end, we know: Only then, when real and imaginary dialog would coincide, one would be able to change the world by words. This means, John and Mary could reach by communication the desired status of relationship. But the two forms of communication never coincide, and so we use the imaginary dialog in order to govern the real dialog and make it controllable. However, communication is feedback, and strangely enough, from feedbacks alone new things can arise. -
macmets-923-67701016 April 2015It's bad enough Mia Farrow was snubbed by the Academy for Rosemary's Baby, but she should have won an Oscar for her performance in this. Dustin Hoffman is in full "Graduate" and "Midnight Cowboy" form but this is clearly Mia's movie. This film is an absolute gem! Peter Yates pulled off another great film and one which would never be made today - it's too character driven and nuanced - not enough happens - for Hollywood today. But oh, so much happens between the lines. There are voice-overs of Dustin and Mia's character's thoughts - which totally work - but because of the quality of the their performances, could easily have been eliminated.
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John and Mary opens with a chance encounter at a pub between a young man (Dustin Hoffman) and woman (Mia Farrow). Their starting point is a discussion about Jean-Luc Godard's Le Weekend, and that very much outlines what kind of characters, not to speak of film we're dealing with here; John and Mary are young intellectuals with an unusually analytical outlook on life (it's almost as if they were written), and the film itself, as directed by Peter Yates, has found more inspiration in the French New Wave than merely a reference in the plot. This is an unassuming film about life and love for 20-somethings in late 1960s New York, and it is told with rapid use of unnotified flashbacks and long, naturalized takes. Remarkably, the film remains relevant in many ways. Seen today, it works not only as a document of bygone traditions and ways, but also serves to link the dating culture of the 21st century to its predecessor generation. Even though the film - through its stagy nature and the dialogue between our two protagonists - keeps a certain theatrical distance to its audience, the interplay between an effectively confident Hoffman and an appropriately sensitive Farrow (fresh off of filming Midnight Cowboy and Rosemary's Baby, respectively) helps make John and Mary a dynamic romantic drama that is both delightful to watch and worthy of afterthought - even today, more than fifty years after its release.