The 1976 classic Mikey and Nicky is a meeting of two of the greatest, most incisive cinematic minds of 1970s America – John Cassavetes and Elaine May. Cassavetes' run as a director through the '70s is, arguably, the most influential set of films ever made in America as the actor turned director unleashed a series of the most essential independent films of all time, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night chief among them. Elaine May, a comedian turned writer/director, was breaking new ground at the same time, albeit in a different direction. She directed two of the most socially biting comedies of the 1970s back to back with A New Leaf and The Heartbreak Kid, and the rest of her career saw her write scripts picked up by Otto Preminger, Mike Nichols and Warren Beatty.
In the case of Mikey and Nicky, May distanced herself from her usual work and embraced a style much more similar to Cassavetes', creating a starkly raw, impossibly real film that is so ridiculously grounded it could, at times, be mistaken for documentary footage. The film sees the desperate Nick (John Cassavetes) on the run from gangsters. In his desperation, he calls on his lifelong friend Mikey (Peter Falk, a frequent collaborator with Cassavetes' in the latter's films) all the while unaware that Mikey is directly involved in the effort to catch Nick and kill him. Mikey, forever oscillating between sympathy for his close friend and frustrated by the distance that has grown between them throughout their lives, must choose whether to help Nick escape or aid his bosses in having him killed.
Really, the plot of Mikey and Nicky is only a means to an end. The primary focus, without a doubt, is on the characters and the unfathomably good leading performances of John Cassavetes and Peter Falk, both of whom deliver some of the finest acting of their careers in May's tender, dramatic tragedy. The film, forever directed with a focus on creating sequences and relationships between characters that feel palpably real, is a deeply emotional one as it delves into the bonds that people share with one another seen either through the relationship between the titular characters or through their interactions with others, especially with women.
Shot with eerie precision – the kind able to appear improvisation while being anything but – by cinematographer Victor J. Kemper, Mikey and Nicky is a fascinating film due to its ability to be so many contrasting things at once. It is utterly heart-breaking but consistently wry and comedic, its characters are detestable at times (even the tagline acknowledges this; “… Don't expect to like 'em”) and yet the audience never loses their empathy for them, and the form feels sudden and jarring yet completely perfect given the context of the film itself and its aims. It is a tense thriller that is at its finest when it halts the tension and chooses to take its time, a film so expertly directed that it can at times be difficult to understand exactly how impactful the behind-the-camera decision making really is.
Containing two of the finest performances from two of American cinema's best ever actors, Mikey and Nicky is a gut-wrenching tragedy, a tender buddy comedy and a terribly tense crime drama all at once. It's a miraculous film, directed and written with wicked precision by Elaine May, beautifully shot and tightly edited.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Elaine May, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New program on the making of the film featuring interviews with distributor Julian Schlossberg and actor Joyce Van Patten
New interviews with critics Richard Brody and Carrie Rickey
Audio interview from 1976 with actor Peter Falk
Trailer and TV spot
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Nathan Rabin
New cover by Connor Willumsen
Mikey and Nicky releases on Blu-Ray by the Criterion Collection on January 13th
