When Woody Allen is good – he’s really good. This film ranks up there with some of his best, like ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN and ZELIG. The film looks at the moral dilemmas of ending and starting an affair. One story is tragic and one story is comedic and how they meet in the end is inspired.
Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau, ED WOOD) is a well respected ophthalmologist who has been having an affair with a flight attendant named Dolores Paley (Anjelica Huston, THE WITCHES). She continues to push the issue of him leaving his wife with threats of exposing his indiscretion. Judah talks to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach, TV’s LAW & ORDER), who suggests making Dolores disappear. On the flipside, struggling documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern (Allen) debates starting an affair with a fellow producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow, ROSEMARY’S BABY). Cliff is in a loveless marriage and likes to spend more time with his young niece Jenny (Jenny Nichols, NEW YORK STORIES) than with his wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS). Wendy got Cliff his most recent job, working on a TV documentary about her brother Lester (Alan Alda, TV’s M*A*S*H), a famous sitcom producer, who is a womanizing smooth talker that Cliff loathes on principle.
The film opens up debates on morals, situational ethics, faith in God, sin and love. Judah is of that age when an affair had him forget his advancing years. In the excitement of the new relationship, he believes he might have said some things that may have led Dolores along. Now she's gotten a little obsessed and the whole momentary pleasure seems like a giant mistake, not worth losing everything he's taken years to build. When murder is suggested, Judah wonders if he could live with himself afterward. Would the solution only taint all the things he is trying to save? He works with eyes, so he knows something about seeing. If God sees everything, he'll know. But what is Allen hinting at when the doctor seeks advice from a blind rabbi Ben (Sam Waterston, THE KILLING FIELDS)?
This is the darkest of Allen’s films I’ve seen, leaning toward tragedy. Alda’s character makes two great comments about comedy — “it can bend, but not break” and “comedy is tragedy plus time.” These statements become profoundly poignant and paradoxical in the film’s brilliant final scene. The movie still has Allen’s trademark humor, but the film is far more somber and thought provoking than hilarious. Allen’s use of lighting and camera are intriguing. The acting, as always, is solid. It’s another top-notch production from a master filmmaker. Like Dostoevsky, Allen asks us if great men are above normal morality, or are they just selfish lucky bastards?
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
