Follow breadcrumbs scattered by Girls, Frances Ha and every modern story about friendships between creative women, and they’ll eventually lead to Girlfriends, Claudia Weill’s directorial debut from 1978.

Co-written by Vicki Polon, it stars Melanie Mayron as Susan Weinblatt, who has a perfect face and spends her days shooting bar mitzvahs and waiting for her big, artistic break in late-’70s New York City. When her best friend and roommate, Anne (Anita Skinner), a writer, gets married and moves out of their apartment, Susan searches for ways to repair her loneliness. She meets Eric (a hunky young Christopher Guest), grows close to Rabbi Aaron Gold (Eli Wallach), brings home a hitchhiker named Ceil (Amy Wright) and tries to bridge the distance by spending time upstate with Anne and her husband, Martin (Bob Balaban).

A film about friendship, making art and platonic love, Girlfriends is so much more than the sum of its parts and a tidy plot summary.

Join Kate Jinx and Brodie Lancaster, the hosts of the weekly pop culture conversation podcast SEE ALSO, for a post-film chat about this rarely seen, deeply loved classic.

Rating

M

Duration

120 MINS