The Group (1966)

(On Cable TV, June 2020) In adapting Mary McCarthy’s bestselling novel to the screen, The Group runs into a few problems, most of them having to accommodate an ensemble cast of eight women, plus the men who usually make trouble in their lives. Even at 150 minutes, it’s a bit of a challenge—especially since the story spans years from 1933 to 1940 and multiple heartbreaks as the eight women don’t quite achieve their idealistic goals after graduation. It’s not exactly the most riveting of premises, but seeing Sidney Lumet’s name as director drew me in, and the rest of the film gradually grew on me. The film is clearly a 1960s feminist drama—the well-educated, intelligent protagonists have dreams of intellectual lives that are gradually ground down by the demands of marriage, children and household. You could pretty much tell the same story about just any graduate class since then. It does feel melodramatic and overdone by today’s standards, but you can feel how daring The Group could have been to a mid-1960s audience. As you’d guess from the premise, men don’t come across particularly well here—and bring much of the drama. With such a large cast, some of the names are familiar: Candice Bergen, Hal Holbrook and Larry Hangman, most notably. Director Lumet manages the action effectively with the succinct script he’s given—among other things, there’s an interesting visual device of typewritten alumni letter updates typed on screen as context. With such a sprawling melodrama, there was bound to be something interesting for everyone—in my case, having a look at a drunken playwright and a literary agency. Nowadays, The Group would be best adapted as a TV series—in trying to retain the novel’s details, the film does rush through a lot and delivers mere bites of drama. Still, it does have an impact.