Review: Honest and Authentic 'Girlfriends' Still Emotionally Rich After Over 40 Years

Claudia Weill's 1978 film "Girlfriends" has been frequently reappraised and discovered ever since its release, and rightfully so. It charts the delicate internal forces that attract, repel, and connect women in their relationships, while also gracefully presenting the invisible patriarchal forces working against them.

Weill's directorial prowess is on full display here, including her innate sense of knowing exactly where to put a camera in regards to performance. It's a film full of life and the frills of a low-budget project, but it's all anchored by a deep knowledge of the ties that bind people to one another and, yes, the actions that strain those ties.

"Girlfriends" has received a terrific home entertainment release on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection, with a new 4K digital transfer of the film as well as a laundry list of special features that fans of the film will want to visit immediately. For a movie that captured such a specific time and place, it's valuable to have it properly restored and presented. I recommend picking this one up if it interests you at all.

Susan Weinblatt (Melanie Mayron) is a young woman living in New York, making ends meet by being a bar mitzvah photographer on Manhattan's Upper West Side. After her best friend and roommate Anne (Anita Skinner) falls in love, Susan's life is upended and thrown into a state of flux.

Far more than a story about a woman trying to make it big in a big city, "Girlfriends" also soars on the excitement of friendships. How being emotionally intimate with someone of similar beliefs and gender can cause a type of closeness, but also opens you up in incredibly vulnerable ways. And the film minces no words about how that closeness will result in some sort of pain, but it's up to us to navigate those situations and retain the happiness that these relationships have caused us to feel.

"Girlfriends" is bolstered by an incredible cast, including Melanie Mayron's deeply textured performance as Susan, a character that's all emotional impulses carefully telegraphed on her face. Mayron is gracefully negotiating each line of dialogue like Weill is while directing, but it all comes off naturally.

As for special features, there's a great new interview with Weill, Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, and Bob Balaban that was produced over video chat because of pandemic reasons. There's also a terrific interview with Weill where she frankly speaks to the film and its legacy.

Other special features include:

� Interview with screenwriter Vicki Polon
� Interview with Weill and writer and filmmaker Joey Soloway
� "Joyce at 34" -- a 1972 short film co-directed by Weill and Joyce Chopra
� "Commuters" --a 1970 short film by Weill and Eliot Noyes
� Essays by film critic Molly Haskell and scholar Carol Gilligan

"Girlfriends" is now available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.