Two for the Road

"Joanna" (Audrey Hepburn) and husband "Mark" (Albert Finney) are taking a road-trip to the South of France where they are to attend the opening of a home designed by him for "Maurice" (Claude Dauphin) and "Francoise" (Nadia Gray). It's clear from the outset that this couple's days in the sunlit uplands have long passed and that they are really now just going through the marital motions. Along the route, though, Stanley Donen introduces us to this couple - using flashbacks - and we we discover the happier times as they met, commandeered an old jalopy, made love under the stars etc... We are also presented with the scenarios that led to the cracks developing, to their loss of trust in each other, to their own equally selfish behaviour and ultimately bringing us to the point where start. Is it all irredeemable? To be honest, that didn't really matter. What we have here is an electric relationship portrayed by two stars who have a genuine, natural, chemistry together. Finney, particularly, looks like he is genuinely enjoying his time and Hepburn just oozes a joyousness and flightiness that makes the love story compelling and engaging to watch. As it develops, both grow up and we have to grow up with them - an experience that we all, however reluctantly, have to endure with always unpredictable results. The well constructed dialogue is authentic and frequently quite witty, and it is delivered confidently by two actors clearly at ease in the other's company. Henri Mancini delivers a delightfully suitable accompaniment to this tale of the lives and loves of two people who don't really know how, or why, they've got to this position in their lives and even in their latter stages, that still exudes an agreeable degree of joie-de-vivre!