Although I wouldn't say this film is actually enjoyable, it does give a good feel for life in the 60's - at a certain level at least.From topless bars to the TVs crackling away in the background about the war in Vietnam, "Petulia" has plenty of incidental detail of the mid-60s. The story itself seems rather pointless, also reflecting how many seemed to feel about their lives at the time. In a way, it captures the age as effectively as "Woodstock" or "Easy Rider", but from a totally different viewpoint.Set in San Francisco, Petulia Danner (Julie Christie) is an impulsive woman who latches onto the prominent middle aged Dr. Archie Bollen (George C Scott) and ignites an affair of sorts. Everybody in the story has issues: she is caught in a marriage to David Danner (Richard Chamberlain), an abusive man who has issues to spare, while Archie Bollen has recently left his wife and two young boys. Archie's friends find it hard to accept the breakup as it highlights their own fragile relationships. In fine 60s style, everyone is searching for meaning to their lives, and on it goes until the bleak fade out.Director Mark Lester didn't miss one chic effect; the film has flash-forwards as well as flashbacks - all very now back then, but looking too self-conscious these days.The film has two of the most beautiful faces of the time: a luminous Julie Christie and a smoothly handsome Richard Chamberlain, and one of the craggiest, George C Scott, just before he strapped on the ivory-handled pistols for "Patton". Joseph Cotton as David Danner's insufferable father represented the despised establishment of the day.John Barry composed a wistful score full of longing that had more depth than much of the film. During the 60s Barry came up with one brilliant score after another; "Petulia" was one of them.People are often fascinated by the era just before they were born and for those with a fascination for the 60s the film has much to offer. At first glance, it may not seem connected with flower power, hippie culture or free love, but in a way, those attitudes can be seen shaping the actions of the film's characters.With that said though, this is a film where the sum of the parts is actually greater than the whole.

FELT I HAD TO SAY A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE WONDERFUL,MYSTERIOUS,TOUCHING "PETULIA" DIRECTED BY THE GREAT RICHARD LESTER(WHO SHOULD HAVE WORKED MORE) WITH A CREW OF 'WIZARDS' LIKE CULT DIRECTOR NICOLAS ROEG IN CHARGE OF CINEMATOGRAPHY(AND WHAT CINEMATOGRAPHY!),TONY WALTON FOR COSTUMES AND DESIGNS ,DEAN TAVOULARIS (FROM APOCALYPSE NOW) IN CHARGE OF SETS,AND SET DRESSING,AND A HEART BREAKING MUSIC SCORE FROM 'MAESTRO' JOHN BARRY. WHAT SHALL I SAY? THAT ANYTIME I SHOW THIS FILM TO A FRIEND, THEY REMAIN SPEECHLESS AND BECOME FANS? THAT EVEN AFTER 43 YEARS,IT'S STILL TODAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME? THAT I SAW A FEW FILMS WHO COMPLETELY REPRODUCED SOME OF THE SAME MASTERFUL,UNFORGETTABLE ANGLES? THAT THE STORY IS SO POETIC AND SO INTENSE TO BE HAUNTING YOU FOR EVER? That Julie Christie IS ONE OF THE BEST ACTRESSES EVER&AFTER THIS FILM,IF SHE WON'T BE IN YOUR FAVORITE TOP 10 IT MEANS YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW NOTHING ABOUT REAL ACTING AND REAL STARS?SHE IS SO UNIQUE&GORGEOUS,YOU JUST WANNA SEE HER IN EVERY MOVIE(AND UNFORTUNATELY SHE HAS NOT MADE SO MANY: ALMOST ALL OF THEM EXCELLENT,UNFORGETTABLE FILMS, BUT VERY FEW!).GEORGE C. SCOTT IS ALSO ONE OF THE BEST ACTORS EVER,SO UNDERSTATED,YET SO INCREDIBLY PIERCING&THE SUPPORTING CAST,FROM Shirley Knight to Arthur Hill&GREAT Joseph Cotten(in a very Dark Role)IS OUT STANDING.Even Richard Chamberlain,here,looks almost coming from a SCOTT-FITZGERALD'S Novel, While,He MAKES YOU FORGET about all the TV SHOWS, And Soapy Mini-series,Playing here the Gorgeous,yet BRUTAL,Wealthy, Rebellious KID,with such a Charm, You'd be Expecting him to become the next Paul Newman. And I could go on: If you have not seen this Film,Please Make Your Self a Favor and Watch it! HIGHLY RATED Always,By every Single Top Critic,It's been(INEXPLICABLY) OVER LOOKED from many Audiences: It was ground breaking&INCREDIBLY Insightful,The Emotional 'CRESCENDO' OF JULIE CHRISTIE'S Puzzled Memory of Her Sad Life: A beautiful,yet Lonely Socialite,married to the American Dream, which Leads her instead to Such an Imperfect Life, Painfully Flawed by a Progressive Lack of Feelings,by anyone surrounding her, A Crowd that resembles a bit one Busy Red Carpet today,full of tragic People,Hooked on Superficiality,Incapable of Communicating,while an underneath Disturbing Violence is Spreading around.It's truly a Tragic Film,that Starts like an extremely Sophisticated Comedy, Slowly Descending into a Bitter End: What Life has just Left you with? Isolation,Incommunicability&Stuck in What you'd Only Hope It was a Nightmare,but it is truly your living,and you can't change it anymore,because its paths are Irreversible. ONE MORE NOTE: I am very Surprised,WHEN A LOT OF REVIEWERS on here,although loving the Movie, felt"Annoyed"or Confused by what I consider instead Genius Editing:It Empowers,with its Flash Forward's and Flash back's,the Narration to Such an Extent,Becoming Really one Of the Greatest Assets of this Film, which makes you almost 'See' The Film Through the Troubled Mind of Petulia, a Triumphant Tale That Unravels its Tragedy in a Romantic Drama, that is Cut like a Mystery Thriller:Keeping you always Guessing what It might have Happened ,and Once You get to know a Part of it, You still do not get to Know Why or How such an Horrific Event Could have been. Slowly,but Extremely Satisfyingly,Petulia Tells in Progression,the inevitable Ending, which is also a True Meditation on Life and Relationships,Existential and Social Regrets,making even more Poignant, this Insightful Story: It is a True Mystery what's Going On, that Keeps You Really Hooked Guessing, Until The Very End, where a Series of highly in Depth References,Become more and More Touching, Haunting The Audience, also,with the Help of the Extraordinary Sensibility Offered generously,by Julie Christie's Unforgettable Performance, about a Lonely Woman,Searching for Deeper meanings,for Tenderness,in an Alienated World Not Willing to grant anyone's a little more,or at least what such an Incredible Character would have deserved. Julie Christie is a "Miracle' in this Film, That Will Haunt you,if you just Allow to Follow this Clever,Sensational Film,Opening Your Mind First, and then Your Heart! You must see this Film, it's one of The Best ever made!

Julie Christie parades her proletariat pout through 2 hours of psychedelic pretensions, all of which are seemingly supposed to suggest great profundity and hidden meaning--but don't be fooled--this is an empty parcel wrapped in glittering paper, with a core as resoundingly vacuous as the society it attempts to depict.The story, (such as it is) concerns a chic young woman (Miss Christie as "Petulia") who picks up children and middle aged men with casual indifference to convention, because she's "kooky" (recall that our anti-heroine here inherits this voguish characteristic from her cinematic sisters in "Georgy Girl," "Darling" and anything with Sandy Duncan). The reason for this, to which the story eventually arrives, but which it anticipates with frequent visual flashbacks, lies in an unhappy marriage with wealthy pretty boy Richard Chamberlin.In this instance, Petulia's latest adult male conquest is a recently divorced physician, (George C. Scott) with whom she commits adultery, between kooky capers (installing a greenhouse in a residential urban apartment, shopping out the store in an all night grocery etc.) and pronouncements such as "I think I've just found the cure for cancer".Amid the kookiness, and in order to assure us that this is all to be taken in deadly earnest, the story includes an incident in which Petulia is hospitalized after sustaining multiple lacerations in Mr. Scott's apartment. This sequence replete with ambulance runs, and much blood is designed to arouse sympathy for any in the audience who haven't yet warmed to our anti-heroine, who also turns out to be expecting a baby.Mr. Scott wears an expression throughout the film suggesting the worst case of indigestion in history, (and by the way it's the only expression he wears) and one wonders if his dissatisfaction is with the script or the character.In any case, he's unsympathetic, not the least of which is because his ex-wife is portrayed by the exquisitely lovely Shirley Knight of the golden blonde hair and guileless cornflower blue eyes. Her performance, so dead on target, saves the film, in at least those sequences in which she appears.Along the way, every visual cliché in the book is thrown in at some point including protesting hippies, daisy covered vans, strobe lit discotheques, and rock bands. The faddish choppy editing through which these scenes appear fleetingly is about as subtle as a sledge hammer.If the point of this cinematic charade is that modern society is filled with poseurs, then "Darling" from three years earlier made the same point much better. In this case, "Petulia" is the poseur par excellence.

1968 was a remarkable year in the history of cinema. Films as Pasolini's "Teorema", Anderson's "if...." and Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", among others, reflected the times of sudden and often violent changes people were experiencing all over the world. "Petulia" is among those motion pictures, but it is obvious Warner Brothers executives did not realize what had director Richard Lester delivered, and handled the product badly, as the original trailer eloquently shows. I finally had the opportunity to see it after many years, since I saw it included in a list of best films, in James Monaco's book "American Film Now". "Petulia" (based on the novel by John Haase, "Me and the Arch Kook Petulia") touches neuralgic issues of difficult times in the United States in an oblique manner, not to avoid them, but because its center is the title character played by Julie Christie (excellent as usual): hippie culture, racial conflicts, Vietnam, drugs, illegal immigration, the intrusion of technology in the bedroom, and middle-class betrayal before the reign of so-called "savage capitalism", all appear as variables in the drama of a young woman abused by her husband. The script of "Petulia" is a guide to moderation and restraint: the film does not emphasize nor is it redundant, but paints all those aspects as integral parts of the portrait of a British woman trapped in (and adapted to) the life of her rich and influential in-laws, and whose intent of rupture is as fragile, fragmented and banal as her personal structure. This is told in a most innovative way for its time, which makes it more regrettable that the film was handled as a pop extravaganza, when it was an innovative and puzzling product with a structure that demanded a more intellectual participation from the audience; and with an organic use of the flash-forward technique (proposed by its editor, Antony Gibbs), an anticipation device that would become common practice in later years (it is interesting to note that five years later the cinematographer of "Petulia", Nicolas Roeg, would direct Julie Christie in the horror drama "Don't Look Now", which contains a scene film editors often mention as an outstanding example of the flash-forward technique, a sex scene inter-cut with takes of the following scene, edited by Graeme Clifford). For many who only think of Richard Lester as the maker of The Beatles movie, "Petulia" is one of several titles of his making that ask for a reconsideration of his work, which also includes very enjoyable period comedies as "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "Robin and Marian", "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers".