I couldn't decide between this or The Pawnbroker, so here's plot summaries for both.
The Pumpkin Eater:The study of a marriage. Jo has five children and husband number two when she meets writer Jake Armitage. She leaves this husband to marry Jake, and his career takes off. A few years and at least one child later, Jo is deeply depressed, breaking down in the middle of Harrods. After psychiatric care and the prospect of a new house in the country, she gets better; then, she is pregnant again, and this time Jake objects. Jo consents to an abortion and sterilization in the belief it will make her marriage happy again, but afterwards she learns ugly truths about Jake. She confronts him. "Why did you marry me?" and "What should we do?" become nearly unanswerable questions. Written by {
[email protected]}
Anne Bancroft was nominated for an Oscar.
The Pawnbroker:This was one of the first films to deal with the effects of Nazi Germany's concentration camps on their survivors. Sol Nazerman, operator of a pawn shop, and a concentration camp survivor faces a horrid internal conflict. Being engulfed in a New York ghetto Environment, Sol suffers flashbacks. The flashbacks juxtapose concentration camp treatment with ghetto neighborhood treatment. Although, the flashbacks suffer several historical inaccuracies, the point is well made. His internal conflicts between submitting to the same injustices he and his family suffered or resisting the injustice a peak at the end of the film Written by Alexander Nicolas {
[email protected]}
Rod Steiger was nominated for an Oscar.