Woody Allen’s first “serious” film also plays like an extreme satire of cold WASPiness. Like Eyes Wide Shut, it occasionally becomes tough to read: Are all these shrill, malevolent people supposed to be objects of pity or disdain? Fortunately, Maureen Stapleton’s fun, blowsy Pearl wafts a well-timed zephyr into the film, contrasting Geraldine Page’s cold, shattered matriarch with a joie de vivre that’s no less studied than the rest of the cast’s chilliness, but a lot more fun to watch.
But regardless of the sometimes slightly forced drama (I’m not sure Allen ever really mastered Bergman’s balance of raw emotion and stageyness), the film strikes a few lovely notes. In its quieter moments, the film contemplates the lovely flat colors of the interiors (not to mention Joel Schumacher’s costumes!). And bludgeoning as some of the dialogue about The Artistic Process can be, Allen offers a few moments of credible dignity to the less “creative” characters: E. G. Marshall’s sensible, resigned Arthur and Mary Beth Hurt’s lost, frazzled Joey. The latter’s lack of a creative outlet seems trifling until the film’s conclusion, in which she absently records a few isolated memories in her journal, for want of a more grandiose form in which to reiterate them, and merely because they struck her.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: MGM/UA DVD
31 Dec 2006 5:01 PM | Submit Comment