Maudite Aphrodite

Spike Jones once said that his material was too corny for sophisticated people but too sophisticated for corny people. Woody Allen's material can lend itself to similar critique. Mighty Aphrodite has a superb balance between sophistication and corn.

The Greek chorus idea is very well used, both at a sophisticated level - the film is essentially a modernised Greek drama - and at a corn level (when the chorus morphed into a more Broadway-style chorus Janie avoided the cheese by going into the kitchen and uncorking the wine). The Greek myth theme is well done throughout - I loved the appeal to Zeus especially. Also the deus ex machina resolution was terrific fun, although I think not entirely original (I believe it was Cocteau who previously used the helicopter as a visual deus ex machina).

Fine performances - Mira Sorvino is a super "tart with a heart". Even Helena Bonham Carter is more effectively used in this film than in her standard Merchant Ivory roles, although I thought she lacked chemistry with Woody. Good also to see F Murray Abraham as the leader of the chorus - why do we see so little of him these days?

I'm a fan of Woody, but he has been patchy in the last 10 years or so. With this one, he really was in sparkling form. Well worth seeing.

Sports writer Lenny Weinrib is married to Amanda. Amanda decides she wants a child but can't afford to take a year away from her art gallery projects, so they adopt. Over the years the child strengthens their marriage and turns out to be incredibly clever and gifted. Curious about his parents Lenny sets out to find Max's mother (understanding the father to be dead). Expecting her to be intelligent he is surprised to locate a hooker who aspires to make it to Broadway and is working her way their in adult movies. He tries to get to know her and seeks to better her lot in life by getting her out of the game so that his son won't grow up to locate his mother to find she is an aging porn star. This causes tensions between Lenny and Linda but also at home as the cracks in his marriage begin to show.

Woody Allen's films do tend to be similar if not the same – certainly the last few years have seen him return to a regular light comedy style (I'm not complaining). However they potentially could be all the same. Here he cleverly mixes Greek tragedy into the story to make it sufficiently different. The story is certainly different, with a hooker taking center stage, however Allen's trade mark wit is still very much on show. The Greek chorus line is merely a different way of delivering his usual one liners and funny observations and doesn't distract at all. It's very straight forward, but the Greek touch makes it feel fresh and new.

Woody Allen is as good as ever – he maybe looks a bit old, but he's so good at what he does that after 5 minutes it doesn't matter. Sorvino is excellent in a daffy role – it's not the sort of role usually rewarded by awards but she deserved the Oscar for a funny performance. Bonham-Carter is not very good as an `Noo Yorka' girl but luckily she has little screen time. The support cast is full of quality and lots of well known (if not famous) faces in small roles, F Abraham Murray is the head of the chorus line but the support includes Peter Weller, Jack Warner, Tony Siricio (Soprano's Paulie), Michael Rapaport, Paul Giamatti – the list goes on.

Overall this is yet another quality product from Woody Allen, it's hardly ground breaking stuff but when someone can be consistently this good year after year then you've got to give him his dues.

I have just watched Woody Allen's magnificent movie again for the first time in almost 10 years and am more convinced than ever that it is one of his most under-rated films (but then, how do you judge an artist - by his individual works or by the overall body of his work?). And if suddenly I feel I am getting too serious here, let's just say that this is a very funny film.

By now there is no escaping the fact that Woody Allen's films are largely autobiographical in that he uses what is happening in his own life to fuel his storylines. For an audience this is sometimes only apparent in hindsight as the tabloids are quick to exploit Woody's foibiles. But he beats us to it, and for that reason "Mighty Aphrodite" deals us a killer blow - it is very, very funny but in dealing with adoption, children and in marriages on the verge it is also very moving. I laughed till I cried (the juxtaposition of the Greek chorus with the contemporaneous is a brilliant device) and finally I just cried.

As to the movie itself, it is beautifully photographed and brilliantly edited (and with some inspired choreography) and acted to the highest order: (Helena Bonham-Carter standing in for Mia Farrow just as well as Kenneth Branagh stood in for the Woodmeister in "Celebrity" - and how incestuous can we get here). But the final word has to go to Mira Sorvino who is funny, touching and inspired. Sometimes (not often) the Academy gets it right and her Oscar was one of their finest hours.

A childless couple adopt a baby, but the father becomes curious about the real birth mother and decides to trace her.

Good to see Allen returning to something like his best, probably because he is returning to his natural home: The light comedy of domestic life and the embarrassing people that we have to deal with.

The star turn is Mira Sorvino (the natural mother) as the tart with a heart (an update of the happy hooker?) who Allen gets to know by pretending to be a client. Great plot device, which shows what Allen can do when he casts his mind wider than people chatting around restaurant tables or at parties.

Interesting to see how Allen has developed as regards sexual frankness and the use of four letter words. Strangely he is returning to the device of being sexually inept (something he had been moving away from) to gain extra laughs.

For once he gives the best lines to someone else - and in Sorvino we have a great comedienne: A really touching and funny performance. Another Oscar that an actor/actress would never have otherwise got without the magic pen of Woody - no wonder the guy is so loved in the business!

Away from the main comedy the thing bumbles along. Wife Helena Boham-Carter is not faithful and they argue a lot. The usual hypocrisies, double standards and manners are displayed (for a WA film), but they don't stop the film as they do elsewhere. The Greek chorus asides - are actually fantastically funny and a real piece of comic invention.

Thankfully we have a something to do and somewhere to go here, it isn't just people whining about their lives. Allen wants to improve the life of the hooker-come-porn-star and suggests hairdressing and teaming up with a half-wit boxer (who he met through his job as a sports writer) he thinks she will like.

A very entertaining film and it is good to see that Allen can write funny lines for women - which I thought he was incapable of. Recommended.

This is a charming movie - particularly the parts played by the boxer-onion farmer, and prostitute/porn star, and their two scenes together. Allen's character's efforts sense of what happier direction the prostitute's life could take and his efforts to reform her, are also exactly what most of us would do if we discovered that she was the biological mother of our adopted child.

Allen has such imagination - and such an understanding of how people of varying education and background, talk and move, and what they care about.

I did feel the subplot involving Helena Bonham-Carter, her career and Peter Weller, was less imaginative, less interesting. I've always had trouble warming to Bonham-Carter - perhaps it's just how unlikeable virtually all her roles have been - and this role didn't help.

Mira Sorvino's character sounds amusingly like Victoria Jackson from Saturday Night Live - her figure is so eye-popping, and her sweetness so endearing that she definitely is the memorable character for anyone who sees the movie. "Oh, that's the one with Mira Sorvino" is undoubtedly how people would remember this movie. However, the Greek chorus was a wonderful idea - and Jack Warner in a small role as a blind seer, and F. Murray Abraham as the principal chorus member/conscience of the movie is also wonderful.