Images is an awful, awful, awful movie- frustrating, annoying and pretentious. It is what Roger Ebert calls a Jerk Around Movie- a movie that establishes one premise, only to knock it down, and then another, and another, often in altered state of reality. These movies are rarely good (Jacob's Ladder came close), but Images takes on a special kind of badness because of its pretensions. Robert Altman, the writer and director, was clearly introduced in a evoking a creepy, horror movie atmosphere, while at the same time making a "serious" psychological drama. The movie fails on both counts, for the same reason- the story is so stupid and simplistic that it we see through the obvious script and don't get involved with the characters, either to be afraid for (or of), or to root for them.
The story involves a British woman named Cathryn (Susana York) who is apparently schizophrenic. She is married to Hugh (Rene Auberjonis), a caring but somewhat abrasive American. Or is she really married to Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi) a tough looking French guy who supposedly died in a plane crash years ago? Or maybe Rene isn't really dead, or they are the same person, or none of this real. Any way you look at it, you won't care, because the tone of the film too serious for the silly and obvious story.
Altman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond do succeed in creating many evocative images, and this movie might have worked if it was merely a standard drama heavily influenced by its location, with none of the metaphysical crap thrown in.
To compliment the obvious script, we also have some really generic horror movie music from the great John Williams (which is fine on its own but is inappropriate for the movie), and awkward sound effects at inappropriate places. The director also puts excerpts from a children's book Cathryn is writing on the soundtrack, apparently because he thinks it's scary.
I am not sure that it is possible to convey in writing how boring this movie is. I saw the movie on DVD, if I had seen in the theatre, I would have surely walked out. Last year, I gave a one star review to the Britney Spears movie, Crossroads, but I would rather put it on a double feature with Gigli than see Images again.
Images (1972)