Excellent, a Must See

Absolutely Fantastic

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It's undeniable that Woody Allen makes funny movies, taking absurdity and neurotic behavior to it's ultimate extreme. I've only seen a handful myself, but with the benefit of much hindsight, it's more than apparent that Allen was telegraphing the salacious and immodest behavior that would intrude on his own personal life in the years to come. It happened in a scene from "Bananas" when his character is observed at a magazine stand looking at girlie mags; he said he was doing a study on perversion and child molesting. In this one, the producer of one of his plays pulls the plug by stating that "Child molestation is a touchy subject", to which Allen's character Mickey blows it off by stating that half the country is doing it. As a writer, Allen may be tops, but as a human being he's not exactly a great role model.So with that aside out of the way, I thought the story here demonstrated Allen's screen writing ability in all it's neurotic best. Not only were the principal characters angst driven, but Mickey himself was a veritable treasure trove of insecurity and defeatist behavior. He's even a failure at suicide, though I never got the feeling he ever really wanted to off himself. The errant rifle blasts only added to the idea that he was a misguided fool who couldn't carry a project through to it's ultimate conclusion.One thing for certain, the movie has a stellar principal cast and a fine lineup of supporting players who were up and comers at the time like Lewis Black, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Daniel Stern amid the proceedings. At one point, Woody Allen is seen walking down a city street with a Hitchcock marquee in the background for "The Secret Agent", and I had to wonder if Allen intended some subliminal message there for his audience. In terms of message, I thought Allen got to the heart of the matter near the end of the story shortly after the suicide scene went bust. In reflecting on the afterlife and Man's position in the universe, the best he could come up with was "Maybe there's something. Nobody really knows." Perhaps one day he'll find out.One last observation - if you take a good look at Michael Caine in his role as Elliot, doesn't he resemble a more refined and mature version of Woody Allen?

A cast loaded with major Hollywood personalities from Mia Farrow to Barbara Hershey to Max Von Sydow to Michael Caine to Diane Wiest to Woody Allen among others brilliantly explores the familiar theme of the romantic storyboard -the seemingly endless variety of things to do in a big city does not for long take your mind off whatever your personal hangups happen to be. The fictitious characters are all blocked as self centered with Allen's visual directorial style wandering from single camera focus to enticing panning shots for variety. What Allen seems to capture best in this film is the decaying Manhattan, New York City infrastructure whose denizens look the other way as to its surface grime and street traffic intensity.

I saw this movie when it first came out, and I thought it was just great, although I did not like Michael Cain in his role. Fast forward however many years, and I caught it on TV. Still didn't like Michael Cain in the movie - too whiny and overwrought, but so was everyone else. What a terrible movie! It has not stood the test of time. All the characters are high-strung, navel gazers who talk too much and say very little. The Allen Method of acting, which is basically improvising, looks so corny and amateurish in retrospect, and not at all realistic. Mia Farrow's voice could drive anyone insane, and her character is insipid; her sisters treat her like dirt, and her husband uses and abuses her. Just awful.

Life is one giant human comedy, and Woody Allen understands, and portrays, this fact better than any living American director. I prefer him when he's trying to make a comedy comedy ("Manhattan Murder Mystery", "Sleeper"), but there's no denying just how proficient of a writer, of a director he is when it comes to studying the complex relationships between lovers, friends, family. "Annie Hall" remains immortally wise, "Manhattan" blindsidingly poignant. He hit his stride during his professional (and personal) relationship with Mia Farrow (lasting in the movies from 1982-1992), "Hannah and Her Sisters" acting as the era defining tour-de-force that broadened his horizons as a writer as mischievously observant as his idol, Ingmar Bergman.Told in three stretches over a two-year period, "Hannah and Her Sisters" begins during Thanksgiving and ends during Thanksgiving, both dinners held at Hannah (Farrow) and her husband, Elliot's (Michael Caine), impressive New York apartment. Acting as a plot device in similar spirit to the Cookie of "Cookie's Fortune" or the Alex of "The Big Chill", the interweaving stories, in some shape or form, connect to the perpetually frazzled blonde.As the film opens, Hannah, along with her sisters, are facing particularly difficult periods in their lives. Normally happily married, Hannah and Elliot's union begins to hit turbulence when Elliot suddenly finds himself obsessed with his wife's earthy sibling, Lee (Barbara), with whom he begins having an affair. The neurotic Lee, in turn, is currently living with a much older, antisocial artist (Max Von Sydow) she no longer finds physically or mentally arousing. While Lee's guilt thickens, Hannah, in the meantime, is forced to act as the emotional net for her basket case sister Holly (Dianne Wiest), an ex-cocaine addict who jumps from career to career while attempting to also make it as a Broadway actress. Her failed jabs at a normal life eventually settle, however, when she begins dating Mickey (Woody Allen), Hannah's hypochondriac ex-husband."Hannah and Her Sisters" kicks off as warm as any one of Allen's other comedies, but as its observational progression toward character study oblivion becomes more apparent, the film turns voyeuristic — it's as though we're a fly on the wall, catching glimpses of these imperfect people at their most imperfect times. Notice how the vulnerabilities of the characters never lose their prominence even when they're putting on friendly façades for strangers, how Allen draws such subtly profound characterizations that it becomes increasingly effortless to understand these people so well it's as though we've known them since they were children. Long after "Hannah and Her Sisters" closes does one begin to realize just how masterful of a writer Allen is; he can cover up his genius with his neuroses all he wants, but to make a cast of characters feel so multidimensional in the scope of a single film is an astonishingly difficult task — for Allen, it's duck soup. He's the perceptive one in the room.It's as if he's known people like these before. Hannah is the kindhearted success story whose need to nurture sometimes hinders her own personal growth; Lee is the intellectual who doesn't quite know where to focus her potential. Holly is the type that fantasizes about what her life could be like rather than trying to make much needed changes; Mickey closes himself off in a bubble of fear because he doesn't want to admit that a mundane life is something okay to live. Perfectly cast, the ensemble feels like one large extension of Allen's consciousness."Hannah and Her Sisters" is a saga of failed attempts at moviedom happiness, combining comedy and heartfelt drama with startling pathos. The characters here aren't merely characters but people, people with ticks, little confidence, doubts. How Allen so successfully pens them all I can hardly understand — just let the film do the talking instead of me.