Ash Wednesday is a 1973 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Larry Peerce

Larry Peerce

Larry Peerce is an American film and TV director whose work includes the theatrical feature Goodbye, Columbus, the early rock and roll concert film The Big T.N.T. Show, and One Potato, Two Potato , the first U.S...

. The screenplay by Jean-Claude Tramont focuses on the effect that extensive cosmetic surgery

Plastic surgery

Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...

 has on the life of a middle-aged married woman.

Plot

In a desperate attempt to save her faltering marriage, 55-year-old Barbara Sawyer submits to full-body plastic surgery in a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 clinic, then checks into an exclusive ski resort to await the arrival of her attorney husband Mark. Reveling in her considerably younger and tauter appearance, she allows playboy Erich to seduce her. When Mark finally arrives, he announces he is divorcing Barbara to marry a younger woman, leaving her to start a new life with her new looks.

Cast

• Elizabeth Taylor
  Elizabeth Taylor
  Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
  
   ..... Barbara Sawyer
• Henry Fonda
  Henry Fonda
  Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
  
   ..... Mark Sawyer
• Helmut Berger
  Helmut Berger
  Helmut Berger is an Austrian-born German film and television actor. He is most famous for his work with Luchino Visconti, particularly in his performance as King Ludwig II of Bavaria in Ludwig, for which he received a special David di Donatello award.He appears primarily in European cinema, but...
  
   ..... Erich
• Keith Baxter
  Keith Baxter (actor)
  Keith Baxter is a Welsh theatre, film and television actor.- Early years & RADA :Born in Newport, Wales in 1933. Baxter was educated at Newport High School and Barry Grammar School, Baxter studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, during which period he shared a flat with classmate Alan...
  
   ..... David

Critical reception

Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

 of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

said the film "was directed by Larry Peerce . . . and written by Jean-Claude Tramont with all the fearlessness and perception demanded in the boiling of an egg."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of the Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

called the film "a soapy melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 that isn't much good as a movie but may be interesting to some audiences all the same . . . because the star is Taylor . . . There's a kind of voyeuristic sensuality in watching her look at herself in the mirror (which she spends no end of time doing) . . . Maybe the fundamental problem with the movie is that we can't quite believe any man would leave Elizabeth Taylor. It's a good thing we never see Henry Fonda's bimbo, because if we did, we wouldn't be convinced."

TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

rated it one star, calling it "another in the long string of mediocre films by Taylor."

Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 called the film "a dreadful bit of mid-70s soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 . . . full of shallow, uninteresting characters with more money than sense; the only purpose this movie really serves is to keep Taylor and Fonda off the streets for a little while."

Michael and Harry Medved

Michael Medved

Michael Medved is an American radio host, author, political commentator and film critic. His Seattle, Washington-based nationally syndicated talk show, The Michael Medved Show, airs throughout the U.S...

 included the film in their book The Hollywood Hall of Shame, stating "This trashy soap opera spent millions on surgical scenes so detailed and realistic that they revolted most viewers."

Awards and nominations

Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama but lost to Marsha Mason

Marsha Mason

Marsha Mason is an American actress and television director.She received four Academy Award nominations as Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two, and Only When I Laugh. She is also known for starring in the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge.-Life:Mason was...

 in Cinderella Liberty

Cinderella Liberty

Cinderella Liberty is a 1973 film which tells the story of a sailor who falls in love with a prostitute and becomes a surrogate father for her 11-year-old mixed race son. It stars James Caan, Marsha Mason, Kirk Calloway, Eli Wallach, Burt Young, Allyn Ann McLerie, Dabney Coleman, Jon Korkes, and...

.