Documentarian Cindy Kleine's filmic journey inside her parents' long suffering relationship, and especially into her mother's compartmentalized personality, presents an incredibly intimate portrait of an elderly New York Jewish couple.
Conflicting insights from complacent Harold and his shrewish wife Phyllis are expressed in their retelling of their relationship.
Cindy Kleine goes beyond the couple's conscious control of their memories when she has them read from touching love letters they wrote to one another when they were courting.
Privately, Phyllis talks about an affair that she had during her marriage, and the audience is pulled into an inner drama that expresses her selfishness, her identity as a sexual being, and her need to keep secrets.
Home movies, photos, an effective use of animation, and commentary from various family and friends reveal the dysfunctional emotional make-up of a family, without drawing conclusions.
There's a broad range of deeply personal knowledge refracted through Cindy Kleine's lens that encompasses generational shifts of perspective.
"Phyllis and Harold" is a bold and audacious winner.
Not Rated. 85 mins.
