They have three children, and live in a house with so little privacy that they sleep on a sofa bed in the dining room. Mabel drinks too much and behaves strangely, and during the film she will have a breakdown, spend time in a mental institution, and star at her own welcome-home party. Only by the end of the film is it quietly made clear that Nick is about as crazy as his wife is, and that in a desperate way their two madnesses make a nice fit. Rowlands won an Oscar nomination for her performance, which suggests Erma Bombeck playing Lady Macbeth. Her madness burns amid the confusions of domestic life.
Nothing goes easily.
The workers quickly clear their places and leave, while Mabel crumples into the ashes of another failed attempt to please. Mabel has no room of her own. There is a quiet moment early in the film when Mabel is left alone for a while, and stands in the middle of the front hallway, smoking, thinking, listening to opera, drinking, and making gestures toward the corners of the rooms, as if making sure they are still there. Later we see her guzzling whiskey in a bar, and spending the night with a guy she can't get rid of. Waves of noise and chaos sweep in and out of this house.