A Delicate Balance (film)

A Delicate Balance
DVD cover
Directed by	Tony Richardson
Produced by	Ely Landau
Written by	Edward Albee
Starring	Katharine Hepburn Paul Scofield Lee Remick Kate Reid Joseph Cotten Betsy Blair
Cinematography	David Watkin
Edited by	John Victor Smith
Distributed by	American Film Theatre
Release date	November 12, 1973
Running time	133 minutes
Country	United States Canada United Kingdom
Language	English

A Delicate Balance is a 1973 American-Canadian-British drama film directed by Tony Richardson and starring Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Remick, Kate Reid, Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair. The screenplay by Edward Albee is based on his 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.

The film was the second in a series produced by Ely Landau for his American Film Theatre, a subscription-based program of screen adaptations of notable stage plays shown in five hundred theaters in four hundred cities.

The film spans three days in the life of Agnes and Tobias, an upper middle class couple who share their comfortable suburban Connecticut home with her acerbic alcoholic sister Claire. It is matriarch Agnes who helps the trio maintain a delicate balance in their lives, held together by habit, shared memories, and considerable consumption of dry martinis.

The seemingly peaceful facade of their existence is shattered with the arrival of longtime friends Harry and Edna who, suddenly overcome by a nameless terror, fled their home in search of a safe haven. The couple is followed by Agnes and Tobias' bitter, 36-year-old daughter Julia, who has returned to the family nest following the collapse of her fourth marriage. Their presence leads to a period of self-examination, during which all six are forced to explore their psyches and confront the demons hidden there.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "a fine, tough, lacerating production" and added, "Richardson's cast could hardly be better."

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