Intérieurs

The three adult daughters of a quiet attorney and an imperious matriarch are alternately offended and benumbed by their parents' divorce and their father's "hasty" decision to remarry (leaving mama to fend for herself, probably something she needs but does not enjoy--there's no one to boss around). Bergmanesque drama from writer-director Woody Allen, who does not appear or even feel present (Pauline Kael of the New Yorker claims his neuroses have been transposed to the mother-character, but I never felt like I was watching something created by Woody Allen). All the actors are quite fine playing characters who are high-strung, uptight, woebegone (yet oddly, never intentionally comical), yet the flatness of the dialogue and the listlessness of Mary Beth Hurt's frequent narration may strain some viewers' patience. Some of the wordy sequences tend to ramble, and what words! Allen has a fixation with non-textbook terms for multiple abnormal psychoses; and no matter how educated Hurt's character is supposed to be, I had trouble swallowing some of the high-brow talk in her third-act put-down of Geraldine Page. The movie--seriously well-scrubbed, sterile and somber--has many conflicts and personality quirks which feel real and intricate, and Page's high society dementia is riveting (alternately, Maureen Stapleton's gaudy low-class is also superb). The three sisters remain enigmas that confound and confuse (each other and the viewer) but Diane Keaton's gritty reserve as the eldest daughter is the one I gravitated towards. Not a masterpiece (as some critics claimed), but certainly not a dud. It's Woody's art-house gambol, a dark one, and it leaves behind a fascinating imprint. *** from ****

Interiors is Woody Allen's first straight drama, and while most compare the film to Ingmar Bergman (one of Allen's favorite directors), the film's examination of a dysfunctional family struggling for normalcy is a forerunner to such '80s films as Ordinary People and Shoot the Moon, and acclaimed '90s films The Ice Storm, Happiness and American Beauty. The film focuses on three sisters (not the first time Woody Allen would do this), and their reaction to their parents' sudden divorce and then their father's affair with a less glamorous, but very REAL, woman.

Maureen Stapleton plays the new woman and has what I feel is the most heartbreaking scene in the movie. One of the sisters (played by Mary Beth Hurt) inexplicably lashes out at Stapleton after she accidentally breaks a vase. Stapleton's reaction to this is so touching that I remembered it long after the other events faded away. The film is good but stagy; I prefer Woody Allen's later serious dramas because they seem less confined or more stylish (the various Manhattan settings in "Another Woman" and the sudden blackout in the Vermont house in "September"). Still, fans of the '90s films should seek this one out, and since Woody Allen doesn't appear, movie fans should invite Woody bashers over to their homes and start the movie right after the opening credits. The reactions may be interesting.

I'm a big fan of Woody Allen, and I just watched this movie for the first time. I can totally understand why many people hate it, or do not like it. It is depressing, and there's no real "finish" or arc for the characters.

That being said, the one thing that stood out for me that nobody has mentioned, is that even Woody Allen didn't like the characters. I think that was his point. As some have pointed out, the characters are pretentious, self absorbed upper middle class yuppies with no real problems. I think what Woody Allen was doing, as was the case in Manhattan, was giving us a glimpse into that sort of liberal elitist upper crest society, where these characters in particular are pseudo-intellectuals and wannabe artists, who create their own problems that really don't mean anything.

This would explain the introduction of Pearl, the fathers new fiancé. Pearl is great. Amidst all the self absorbed, elitist syrup the characters espouse relentlessly, Pearl emerges as almost a down to earth, working class gal.

The family goes out to a play with their father and Pearl, and later while eating dinner, they are discussing this play. The daughters and their yuppy husbands are over analyzing the play to literally a puke inducing pretentiousness...and Pearl just chimes in "One character was a squealer, the other wasn't. I liked the character who wasn't a squealer. Thats all there is to it!" They try to argue with her with more pretentious drivel, and Pearl simply states again "The message I got was "dont Squeal." Later, Pearl is dancing to dixieland music with everybody, and knocks over a vase on accident, and the one daughter calls her an animal. Towards the end of the movie, Pearl ends up saving the daughters life with CPR after she nearly drowns. She seems almost ungrateful. Its as if this fmaily is so elitist, they look down on Pearl as some sort of "inferior".

Pearl is a down to earth, normal, lovable older woman with some spunk, which is why the father fell in love with her. Throughout the movie, we see how dominating and obnoxious their mother is. She is pretty much the reason the family is dysfunctional, with her delusional, relentless whining, and quiet yet aggressive behavior. On top of that, she was a successful interior designer, and her 3 daughters are all "artsy" intellectuals...and you can see why a character like the father is just overwhelmed with them all, and falls in love with a very grounded, relatively simple woman, Pearl.

I think it was Woodys purpose to make you feel burdened or overwhelmed by the characters, the mother...hell, almost feel completely alienated, only to suddenly find yourself relating to Pearl when she arrives.

Another scene that kind of highlights the pretentiousness of the characters, one of the girls husbands is speaking into a tape recorder about marxism and communism, hinting that he is a supporter of such ideology. Which, again, is woody making a small point. Because here you have this wealthy, yuppy guy, embracing the concept of marxism.

For anyone who grew up or lived around New York in the 60's and 70's, that was always one of those ironies...wealthy yuppy types preaching about marxism and communism. Its sort of a hypocrisy Woody Allen often points out in many of his movies.

To summarize, this was a serious movie that essentially criticizes the upper class liberal crowd, as Woody has done in many of his movies. In Manhattan, Woody narrates in the film at the end about how its full of people with no real problems, so they create them. That is essentially the characters in this film. They want for nothing...so they began creating these "existential dilemmas".

John Waters said that if this film was made under a Swedish pseudonym, they would of called it a masterpiece. Woody Allen was only able to get a film like this made after he won all those Oscars for Annie Hall. Everyone is great in here and it's nice that there's no soundtrack. This is one of Woody Allen's best films.

It's pretty obvious that Woody Allen was so resistant in being confined as a comedy filmmaker that in the throes of his success with the wondrous "Annie Hall", he felt a need to make an über-serious drama in the Ingmar Bergman mode. This 1978 Chekhovian family drama is the result, and it is alternately affecting and exasperating. The key problem is that Allen presents such a hermetically sealed world of intellectuals and artistic souls that the interactions among the characters feel pointed and self-conscious. He has obviously since learned that his best films ("Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters") are served most by his particular balance between comedy and drama.

The story concerns an upscale New York family reacting to the news that patriarch Arthur wants to leave his psychologically unstable wife Eve just released from a sanitarium. They have three daughters, all of whom are grappling with their own problems. Eldest sister Renata is a successful poet stuck in a volatile marriage to Frederick, a fellow writer whose lack of commercial success has merely heightened his jealousy and paranoia. Middle daughter Joey is Arthur's favorite, but she is unable to figure out what to do with her life, and her constant flailing frustrates everyone around her in spite of the patience of her boyfriend Michael. Youngest daughter Flyn is the beautiful, emotionally isolated one who moved to Hollywood to become a semi-successful actress.

They all respond to their mother Eve's neediness in different ways, and the inevitable turning point comes when Arthur finalizes the divorce and remarries, this time to a passionate, fun-loving widow named Pearl. Even though Gordon Willis' beige-dominated cinematography and the frigid, almost-too-perfect art direction by Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert lend the extreme austerity for which Allen seems to be striving, the acting is what makes this film dramatically effective. Mary Beth Hurt gives a brave performance as Joey, capturing all the inadequacy and wounded rejection her character feels. Maureen Stapleton is a breath of fresh air as Pearl, lending an amusing earthiness and colorful indifference when she arrives late in the story.

With her severe look, Geraldine Page effectively lends unrelenting, humorless intensity to her heavily mannered portrayal of Eve and turns her character into a hopelessly desperate victim as the story moves toward its conclusion. As Renata, Diane Keaton removes all traces of the lovable Annie Hall but unfortunately comes across as the most contrived, especially when her character cannot help but be patronizing to Frederick and Joey. Richard Jordan plays Frederick in broad strokes that make it difficult to empathize with his plight. Making lesser impressions are Sam Waterson as Michael, Kristin Griffith as Flyn and a surprisingly understated E.G. Marshall as Arthur. Just the original trailer is included as an extra on the 2000 DVD.