Cinema: Difficult but Triumphant

Sunday Bloody Sunday is an anomaly. Its text is sexual, but its theme is nothing less than the nature of affection. This is the province of the novel, not the cinema, and even so mature a film falters before its destination. But never has an English-language film glistened with so many social nuances. In part, the credit is due to Director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy); he has also contributed a cluster of stylistic debits. The essential triumph of Sunday Bloody Sunday belongs to Scenarist Penelope Gilliatt, whose plot alone challenges the customary moral institutions.

A young bisexual designer, Bob (Murray Head), finds himself the fulcrum of a sexual teeterboard. On one side sits his lover, a Jewish doctor named Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch). At the opposite end is his mistress, the haggard divorcee Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson).

Doubly Desirable. Obviously, such a condition cannot long endure. No problem is too great for the artist to run away from; Bob flees to America. The amours he left behind may have been miserable with him; without him they are desolate. From this uncompromising situation, Gilliatt has drawn blood. Her dialogue is literate but not precious, unbowdlerized but not prurient. Through her characters' recognizability they become memorable.

As the doubly desired object, Head plays a narrow, unrewarding role wedged between two giants. His victim-beneficiaries are creatures of enormous complexity. Alex is an employment agent who cannot find her own vocation. Her family, her friends, her life become dark and unfathomable; all that matters are the flares of sexual consolation. Scrambling even for those few hours, she becomes ferocious or vulnerable, fearing the clock and the calendar and, eventually, all aspects of responsibility.

The recipient of an Academy Award (for Women in Love), Jackson can scarcely be called a revelation. But in certain scenes—when, for example, she orders Bob about in a voice filled with self-abnegation, or when she stands depleted before her "rival"—she surpasses any previous part. As for Peter Finch, this versatile and deeply intelligent performer has never had so fine an hour and a half. In his portrayal, Hirsh betrays no gesture of queerness or bathos. He is merely a man whose affliction is not homosexuality but the tradition that abhors it.

Although the trio constitute most of the film, Schlesinger has not slighted even the smallest subordinate role. A 53-year-old hence unemployable businessman (Tony Britton) is a character worthy of a tragedy all to himself. In a single scene, Peggy Ashcroft as Alex's mother furnishes her daughter with an almost schizophrenic past.