Scenes from a marriage. In twilight sixties form, Stanley Donen directs in a triple threat: himself, master of wit, rhythm and all that jazz; Henry Mancini on the keys; the incandescent Audrey Hepburn winging it in about a thousand different outfits. That's she's lovely is no less than a cinematic truism, but what really makes this is the wry, monotone outbursts of Albert Finney that has both him and her bouncing off the walls with considerable, considerable zing.

Post-Funny Face/Charade, one gets the impression Donen's been itching all along to subvert the Hepburn persona and indeed, just break the cycle – because hasn't falling in love always been a given on her part? Here, the falling bit is history; the negating-the-knot bit a retrospective series of blockades in the form of marriage as a Euro roadtrip three-peat. Hepburn and Finney as Joanna and Mark Wallace resurrect a trio of timelines on route from London to the Riviera. They bicker, flirt and taunt like a pair of duelists – although the brilliant odd coupling of Eleanor Bron and William Daniels (and their she-devil of a daughter) almost threatens to steal their newlywed thunder. Frederic Raphael's dialogue reads like one long, bolshy comeback peppered with some pretty succinct relationship truths; meanwhile, Donen mixes, cuts and destroys the chronology in an editing overture – all that's really missing are the musical numbers. Granted, I have nothing to base this on, but Two for the Road must be one of the few films to actually get this whole marriage thing right. It ends with Finney calling Hepburn a bitch, and Hepburn calling Finney a bastard. If that's not a marriage, what is?—TW

» Stanley Donen | UK | 1967