Movie Notes: Hannah And Her Sisters

June 28th, 2009

= 5 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Michael Caine
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Hannah’s (Mia Farrow) husband Elliot (Michael Caine) initiates an affair with his sister-in-law Lee (Barbara Hershey). Meanwhile, Hannah’s hypochondrica ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) contemplates his own death, and other siter Holly (Diane Wiest) struggles to form an idenity for herself.

The Good

• The dramatic core is provided by Elliot’s stupid pursuit of Lee. Although it plays out in charmingly naive ways, there is an undercurrent of heartbreak, as Lee is currently living with a reclusive artist Frederick (Max Von Sydow) with a cynical view of life. His heartbreak when Lee begins to move on to someone new. Much of the film’s tension is provided by wondering if Hannah will realize Elliot’s affair with her own sister, culminating in an extremely tense and amazing scene where the three sisters lunch together and the camera circles around their faces.
• Trademark Allen humor in Mickey’s, Hannah’s divorced husband (his involvement with the sisters is minimal). Mickey may have a brain tumor and undergoes a series of medical tests, fraught with worry, and eventually must come to some acceptance of death and find a way to live a full life with the knowledge that it will all, inevitably, come to an end. And yes, somehow, Allen manages to play morbidity for laughs.
• Through a deft balance of the above two, Allen again hits a tantalizing balance of humor and drama. And while it’s easy to say Elliot’s thread is “serious” while Mickey’s “funny”, each thread has careful dashes of the opposite — Elliot’s naivete provides his drama with some comic levity, and because Mickey’s main contemplation is hopelessness and death, there is a serious undercurrent.
• I was duly impressed by Allen’s economical direction. Through simple film techniques, he communicates the story: when Frederick is first introduced, he’s sitting at a desk, hidden behind a plastic sheet, reinforcing his reclusive nature. When Elliot flirts with Lee in a bookstore and gives her a particular book, the two characters move between book aisles, speaking to each other off-camera, in a visual chase. When Hannah and Holly go shopping together, and Holly begins to feel goaded and trapped by Hannah’s unintentionally cruel advice, Holly’s face appears small and trapped behind a pole. Elliot and Hannah’s eventual confrontation takes place in cramped bathroom, echoing Elliot’s marital confinement. It’s all amazing visual stuff. Also effectively used are narration to reveal characters’ inner thoughts, and title cards for different sections.
• Begs comparison with the much darker and less successful Interiors, which also dealt with three sisters, suffocated with seriousness, and heavy-handed visual games. Most notable is the contrast between the sisters’ parents — in Interiors they’re like an embalmed funeral, while in Hannah dad plays old show tunes. I might even go so far as to consider Interiors a first draft of Hannah, with the most powerful improvement the introduction of heart and humor to ease the gloom. There’s also an inevitable comparison with the other Allen movies I consider 5 stars — in some ways Hannah improves on Annie Hall because the Allen persona is concerned with the greater, universal issue of mortality (in addition to romance), and the older man — younger woman relationship from Manhattan is explored to greater effect through Frederick and Lee.

The Bad

N/A.

Conclusion

Hannah And Her Sisters is Woody Allen in his prime, and one of my favorite Allen movies. Highly recommended.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Radio Days
Previous Woody Allen Movie: The Purple Rose Of Cairo

IMDB: Hannah And Her Sisters
Wikipedia: Hannah And Her Sisters
Rotten Tomatoes: Hannah And Her Sisters 93%