Watched: 04/19/2026
Format: Video on Demand/ YouTube
Viewing: First
Director: John Cassavetes
For some reason the algorithm has been asking me to watch this movie for years.
I'm not really sure why the algo does this, but my YouTube TV will find a movie that it decides it wants to recommend, and then the movie will follow me around. First among these has been Gloria (1980), and because I don't think I've ever seen Gena Rowlands be anything less than great and because Cassavetes' movies are, at minimum, interesting, I wanted to check it out eventually. So, I guess, thanks, data?
On paper, the movie is deceptively simple. An accountant for the mob (Buck Henry) has been skimming (and maybe doing other things) and is found out. Knowing the enforcers are coming, he's trying to leave, but everyone in his family of five is scared and doesn't know what to do - his wife, their two kids and his mother-in-law. All are resorting to their comfort and security measures instead of just getting the f out.
When neighbor Gloria (Gena Rowlands) comes by to return the sugar she borrowed in the middle of all this, they make her take the boy - aged 6 or 7 - back to her apartment. Almost immediately, the mob shows up and kills the rest of the family. Gloria tries to flee the scene with the kid, but the press is outside and snaps her picture with the son.
Turns out, Gloria is tough as nails as she's a former kept-woman/ moll for the mob herself. She actually knows who these guys are. And swiftly finds out they're keeping an eye on all exits from New York, making it a prison she can't escape on plane, train or car.
SPOILERS
What's shocking at first, but then ultimately makes a ton of sense and makes you wonder why everyone doesn't do this in movies with similar set-ups - Gloria just gets a revolver and starts shooting at all of these assholes. Why not? They'll happily shoot her or worse. Maintaining gender or role expectations ain't helping no one.
The first time you see the bit in the movie where you think "oh, she's fucked" and instead whips a revolver out of her purse and starts shooting into the mobsters' car, it feels like a revelation. Like "oh, yeah, our female lead can pull a trigger! She's not just a victim."
It's not cool. It's absolutely not clean. She's just whipping the thing out and blasting away.
Gloria's arc is that she's not actually attached to this kid - she's looking to get rid of him immediately. Not only is she not maternal, but she knows the kid is both the reason she's in trouble and an albatross. And, honestly, the kid himself is not making this easier.
This is Cassavetes who tends to try to capture something real, and when your secondary character is a 6 or 7 year old, that becomes a real challenge. Hollywood loves a moppet that's precocious and cute as a bug. But having just watched my brother's kids pass through those ages - this is 95% more realistic. They only barely grasp anything complex and will start overlaying their anxiety onto everything. They're emotional IEDs. And even when they're mad, they want the comfort of the person they may be mad at.
Curiously, one of the first Raspberry Awards went to Adames, who was a young child, showing the inherent problem with those awards. But also showing how often the Golden Raspberries miss the mark culturally. I mean, it just feels like the committee fundamentally didn't understand Cassavetes' film. Which can happen. But making fun of kids fucking sucks.
I won't get too much into what happened here, but it does sound like Cassavetes knocked out this screenplay with no intention to direct - he was trying to write something commercial that he could sell to a studio, but when they bought it, they insisted he direct.
The movie bears a lot of the natural style of Cassavetes, and feels organic, sometimes to its detriment as Gloria and the kid re-cross territory and you kind of wonder why they don't do things like put on sunglasses and hats and sneak away. I like it. I still think about Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and I don't think I've seen it in a decade.
The good news is, Cassavetes cast his wife Gena Rowlands, who is so good in this, she carries what I think is a fine, but in other hands, likely a mediocre film. She's really fucking good here. She's not someone doing what they think a tough person is like - she just walks and talks and breathes it. When she pulls out that gun and starts shooting, I absolutely bought it. She knows the stakes and the score. And while she's scared, she sees a straight line between what's happening and how to survive.
The late 1970's New York setting is, of course, a cinematic wonderland. For the Youths who don't recall, New York in the 1970's was experiencing what I'll call economic volatility. Which makes for a phenomenal backdrop - as it does in so many 70's movies when we acknowledged the working class in a way that suggested they weren't some exotic other.
The scene toward the end where Gloria faces off against the final boss is terrific stuff. Hats off. Gena Rowlands, you bad ass.
Anyway, recommended. Good stuff.
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