Rewatchables Reference

• All three: The courtroom scenes – Streep on the stand and Hoffman on the stand. Mallory: 'There are a lot of Pantheon scenes in this movie, but it probably has to be the trial.'
• Mallory: Ted reading Billy Joanna's letter, the run to the hospital after the jungle gym fall, and the ice cream screaming match.
• Sean: The bicycle scene in the park – newly a dad, he was deeply moved by the bonding moments.

• Bill: Young Meryl Streep – 'Just fantastic looking.' Three 1979 movies, crushing it.
• Bill: Justin Henry – youngest person ever nominated for an Oscar, record still stands. Sean: 'There's a case it's the best performance in the movie because of the highest degree of difficulty.'
• Mallory: The divorce genre itself – this movie proved the fertile territory of divorce as cinematic subject matter.
• Bill: The title. Also the poster of the happy family picture and the guitar score.

• Bill: The Hoffman-Streep off-camera dynamics – the slapping, the wine glass, the John Cazale taunting, the groping.
• Sean: A quiet domestic drama being the #1 movie at the box office – that feels a million miles away now.
• Bill: Zero minorities in the entire film – 'might be the whitest movie anyone's ever made'.
• Mallory: The appalling bathroom hygiene – Ted and Billy not flushing or washing hands, then immediately making French toast.

• James Caan passed because he was 'concerned the film was going to be a flop' – it became the #1 movie of 1979.
• Al Pacino was offered the role and turned it down.
• Jon Voight turned it down because he was already doing The Champ.
• Kate Jackson claims she was offered Joanna but Charlie's Angels wouldn't let her. Sean: 'It's safe to assume this is the last time Meryl Streep and Kate Jackson were up for the same part.'
• Faye Dunaway was offered it but did The Champ instead. Streep was originally supposed to play the JoBeth Williams role before being elevated.

• Bill: George Coe, who plays Hoffman's boss. 'Weirdly was in season one of SNL.' Sean: 'He'll always be the judge in Mighty Ducks to me.'
• Sean: Howard Duff – a big actor in the 1950s with 'one of the all-time great voices'.

Bill: 'This movie is impeccably acted.' If forced, Howard Duff's Shaughnessy – delivering inane moments of deliberate courtroom drama.

Bill: JoBeth Williams – 'She's in and out of the movie in 4 minutes' with the nude scene and big glasses.

The Howard Duff role – Sean: 'What if you just put Burt Lancaster in there?' Bill suggests George C. Scott.

• The JoBeth Williams nude scene was optically darkened to avoid an R rating.
• Justin Henry did a lot of improvising with Hoffman – reportedly the only person Hoffman was nice to on set.
• It's the only Best Picture winner of the 1970s not selected for Library of Congress preservation.
• The wine glass scene was filmed at J.G. Melon's, which still has a framed photo.
• Streep was pregnant while filming, hence the raincoat throughout.

• Dustin Hoffman – Bill: 'Yes. It's either this or Tootsie and I think it's this.' He grabs the championship belt from Pacino and De Niro for about a year.
• Justin Henry – definitely yes.
• Divorce movies – yes, absolutely. Top divorce movies: this, The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story.
• French toast – 'Has French toast ever been more prominently featured in a movie?'
• Robert Benton – yes. Two Oscars, number one movie of the year.
• Jungle gym accidents – definitely (Mallory).

• Ted not knowing what grade his son is in – Bill: 'The most self-absorbed person on the planet knows what grade their kid is in.'
• The jungle gym scene – any parent would see their kid up there and say 'you gotta get down'.
• Sean: The Hoffman cross-examination – the attack on his career instability would be a merit in family court, not a demerit.
• Mallory: When Joanna first calls Ted, he doesn't recognize his former wife's voice on the phone.
• Mallory: No cinnamon or vanilla in the French toast recipe – 'Where are the flavors?'

• Mallory: How long until Joanna changed her mind again? 'Was it when she got upstairs?'
• Bill/Mallory: Was Jane Alexander a good friend? She botched being on the stand, almost had Billy impale himself at the jungle gym.
• Mallory: Is Billy's future with romantic partners forever tied to fried chicken after his encounter with Phyllis?

• Bill: Yes – you could get a whole episode of Joanna's California awakening, a whole episode about Ted and the Mid-Atlantic account.
• Sean: It's not unlike the recent HBO Scenes from a Marriage adaptation.

• Bill: A framed version of Ted's pro/con list.
• Mallory: Billy's drawings from the wall, or the little 'Rescue' chopper toy.

• Mallory/Sean: Hoffman – you walk out of the movie feeling like he got his son.
• Bill: As the years pass, Streep wins – 'If that character doesn't work, the movie falls apart.' She's only in about 5 scenes but she's incredible in all of them.