John and Mary (1969) ****

Woefully underrated. Remove the weight of expectation and you’re left with a bittersweet romance. This just wasn’t what critics anticipated from stars Dustin Hoffman, coming off the back of Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Mia Farrow, previous film the coruscating Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and certainly it seemed there was resentment at the audacity of British director Peter Yates attempting to switch from his action roots, best shown in Bullitt (1968). Worse, that Yates was trying to introduce a New Wave vibe.

In the end-up it’s sweet, but getting there is a prickly affair and it’s precisely this unique approach that creates its appeal. Where the standard set-up comprises meet-cute, break-up, back together, for the most part this looks as if actual romance, as opposed to sex, will never get off the ground, the pair smothered by doubt expressed in internal monologue.

Whereas, in The Fixer (1969), for example, hearing a character speak of their feelings outside of dialogue almost torpedoes the picture, here it works a treat, because it’s dealt with as if it was dialogue of the unspoken variety. Past experience that forces both characters to make suppositions about the other’s intent creates a very amusing and essentially true barrier to progress.

Back in the day, at the dawn of the singles generation, the idea of two young people hooking up for one-night stands filled the moral majority with shock, not just that widespread use of the Pill in avoiding pregnancy invoked promiscuity, but that random encounters immediately ended up in the bedroom rather than the becoming the start of a wooing (and discovery) process. These days, of course, Tinder and other such social media inventions, create umpteen opportunities for attraction to translate into instant sex.

But it doesn’t reduce the type of anxieties that are so well addressed here.

You can start with the basic morning-after notion of “how do I get rid of her?” all the way through to assuming such easy attitudes to sex on either side would destroy an ongoing relationship, and along the way dipping into such minefields as how to get to know another person, does he/she even like me or would they fall into bed with the first person to ask them, are they even as attractive in the cold light of day than when perceptions are muddied by alcohol and excitement, and, of course, the ultimate, was performance up to scratch.

This takes the unusual route of being peppered with flashback while the pair engage in spikier dialogue than you would find in the standard Hepburn-Tracy Hudson-Day romcom. And often what they say is the opposite of what they feel. Setting off in several directions at once – back a year or so, taking in the activity of the previous night and ploughing through the current day – could be off-putting but I found it worked a treat.

Anal retentive domesticated furniture designer John (Dustin Hoffman) hooks up in a singles bar with untidy politically-motivated sometime-actress Mary (Mia Farrow). His first reaction on waking up is to explore the apartment (rather large for New York), wonder when his wife will return, and think of all the deceptions he could pull. His first reaction borders on pure fear: she’s already planning to move in.

That neither has a genuine idea of the other person’s feeling provides the movie’s dynamic and the entire movie consists of them adjusting their expectations against a very contemporary backdrop of protests, politics, cinema verite and sex. Though primarily non-sexist and quite gender-equal, she isn’t looking to become a kept woman, for example, it does touch upon the notion that an easily-available woman is not far short of a whore, whereas, naturally, a promiscuous male is entitled to a free pass.

Her last relationship was with a married man (Michael Tolan), but she dropped him once he started talking about divorcing his wife. For John, girlfriend Ruth (Sunny Griffin) dramatically upped the stakes, arriving at his apartment with luggage, items of furniture and a rampant dog, enforcing on John responsibilities he did not want. Unusually, for the era, he is not politically involved and can cook, both of which attributes/skills we discover are the result of a mother so committed to politics that she neglected her children, never stocked her fridge and left her children to fend for themselves.

Each could press the nuclear button at any time. They’re attractive singles so more sex is just round the corner, going their separate ways the easier option, building a relationship far more difficult.

Dustin Hoffman shakes off a lot of the tics that were already showing and would inhibit later performances in a character far removed in sexual confidence from The Graduate (1967), but in some ways still touchingly naïve, and delivers a very believable performance. That it doesn’t fall into the usual Tracy-Hepburn battle of the sexes with witty put-downs owes much to the highly-nuanced performance of Mia Farrow who isn’t, as you might expect, in the least fragile and expresses her independence and challenges his views in a non-aggressive fashion.

Completely ignored by the Oscars, technically it won plaudits from Bafta, bracketed with Midnight Cowboy for Dustin Hoffman picking up the Best Actor Award, and with Rosemary’s Baby and Secret Ceremony for Mia Farrow in  being nominated for Best Actress – such arcane rules later changed.

In small parts look out for Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles, 1974), Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey TV series 1981-1988), Don Siegel’s son Kristoffer Tabori (Journey through Rosebud, 1972) and Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, 1987). John Mortimer (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) wrote the screenplay from the Mervyn Jones bestseller.

Cinematically and narratively refreshing, manages to be entertaining and thoughtful at the same time.