October 14, 1992 -- Woody Allen's latest movie, ``Husbands and Wives'' is one of his best films and is fascinating look at the breakup of two people.

An interesting sidelight is that former Yale University President Benno Schmidt, who gave a speech in Laramie Oct. 9 on educational reform, appears in the film as Mia Farrow's first husband. I had just seen Schmidt at a press conference and at an honors convocation speech the same day I saw him in the film. I kept thinking ``this guy looks just like Benno Schmidt,'' and then I saw his name in the credits at the end of the film.

Schmidt, by the way, was pretty stiff in the film. He did not show much emotion, kind of like a college professor giving a lecture.

The film tells the story of the breakup of two couples. One, played by Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, and the other played by actor/director Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis. Liam Neeson also stars as a man caught in the middle of several romantic relationships.

As usual, the main characters are Manhattan artist-types who regularly see their psychoanalists and they aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. The film is the most brutally honest of Woody's films. No punches are pulled here. The story and the acting are both excellent, but in the end, it is a downer.

Woody achieves a documentary feel by exclusively using hand-held cameras and intercutting documentary-style interviews of the characters, along with psychoanalytical soliloquies. I could have done without the shaky-camera effect and the rough editing, but the film has an undeniable power.

I think it is probably the fourth-best film of Woody's career, after Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters.

The message of the film is that people are unable to control their passions and that some couples agree to settle for less than they want: comfortable, but passionless lives. To what extent did the bitterness of the Allen-Farrow breakup seep into the movie? A lot, it seems. The film rates a A.

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