The Pumpkin Eater

Jo, played by Anne Bancroft, lives in London with her third husband and a great many children. Jake, played by Peter Finch, is a screenwriter, successful and unfaithful. The film is about a marriage coming apart, but what it is really asking is why Jo keeps wanting one more child and what that means to her. Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay, adapted from Penelope Mortimer's 1962 novel. Pinter's mark is in the gaps rather than the dialogue; the scenes abandon chronology and arrange themselves according to Jo's memory. Jack Clayton sustains that structure visually, and the celebrated scene in the department store carries the film's collapse in a single shot. Bancroft won Best Actress at Cannes in 1964 for the role, sharing it with Barbara Barrie. She also took a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar. Who it is for: viewers interested in sixties British drama and in Pinter's writing. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear plot, since the film advances inside Jo's mind and looks scattered from outside.