It takes a lot of patience to get into this dreary filming of a Anton Chekhov play, looking more like a TV play than a motion picture for the big screen. Still it's difficult to pass it up based on the cast, with Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley and Sandy Dennis as the sisters, Gerald Hiken as their brother, Shelley Winters as the annoying sister-in-law they try to avoid (even though she cloyingly insists that they're all ridiculing her) and Robert Loggia and Kevin McCarthy as important visitors.
The film is quite difficult to get into because of the stale production values, much more appropriate for a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation (like "MacBeth", "Medea" and "Victoria Regina") than the release it got. Perhaps more appropriate for a museum presentation where the audience was prepared for something like this.
There's little action, just the family sitting around, talking about better days in Moscow, occasionally arguing, or the three women expressing their regrets. The direction of Paul Bogart is pretty stagnant. This is like so many Chekhov and Ibsen plays that may be thrilling on the stage, but it loses so much on the small screen that expanding its size only accentuates the flaws. Poor Winters appears that she's going to pass out from her breathy line delivery. Of the three sisters, Dennis stands out, playing the character to seem like a younger version of Birdie from "The Little Foxes".
0 out of 2 found this helpful