Alan Feinstein

Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) is sensitive grade-school teacher who leads a very different life after hours. Throwing off the emotional shackles of her troubled childhood, she enters the seemingly liberated world of singles bars and one-night stands in 1970s New York. But the self-degradation takes its toll and her loneliness only intensifies, catapulting Theresa into a volatile world of drug addiction and sexual alienation. This vivid and intense portrait of the free-spirited swinging-singles scene in New York City captures the naive spirit of early feminism as well as the turmoil of a woman's attempt to find her own sexual and spiritual identity. Theresa's own dreams and struggles are uniquely brought to life in delightful and disturbing fantasy sequences that bring a brash and complex nature to her own soul searching. Diane Keaton's performance is raw and bittersweet, portraying the delight of sexual freedom as well as the volatile need and desire that she cannot quench. Richard Brooks brilliantly employs a hard-hitting soundtrack, brutal cinematography, and intense realism to create a masterful cautionary tale and intimate portrait of the new woman of the 1970s.