It is impossible to talk about what Petulia means without talking about how it is structured and composed; form, for once, is truly indistinguishable from content. (p. 67)

Larry Marcus's script and Lester's direction of Petulia constantly play against sentimentality…. The love scenes between Archie and Petulia are all joyless—an abortive tryst at a remote-controlled motel, where registration, room location, even sexual stimulation are done by machine; a jaunt through a tomblike supermarket late at night; an awkward, fumblingly lustful embrace in Archie's car. Even Petulia and Archie's night together is austerely filmed…. Lester has never dealt convincingly with love (he has usually not even tried), but here he turns that weakness into strength: his peculiarly unromantic temperament transforms what might have been mawkish material into a bitter but compassionate drama of human isolation. (pp. 67-8)

The melancholy in all of [Archie's and Petulia's] encounters makes the futility...