September

Woody Allen in this movie brings to us the story of a group of people all staying at a summer home in the country. It's a very dark and claustrophobic place. And at this place we learn so much about the characters. This is a very deep character study and I think it's the best Allen "bergmanesque" film he's made. It has been highly underrated by people and critics. I feel it does not get any of the recognition it should. And Mia Farrow's and Sam Waterston's performances are magnificent.

First i must say that i'm an inconditional Woody Allen fan so i can take a lot from him without judgement. I watch September for the first time yesterday and i must say that it was good. I've read many bad comments on that one throughout the years so i was ready for the end of the world! Having read Woody's comment on the film in the DVD booklet i was surprised to find out that Woody had intended September to be a filmed play. So with this in mind i was more opened to the "extremely hermetic" ambiance of the film. Ok,it is emotionly heavy at times in this who-love-who plot but it is rewarded with great performance from Diane Wiest and Mia Farrow. I would recommend this to anyone who want to see another side of Woody with an opened mind. I really enjoyed that one...

Let's face it: It's hard to be entertained by a story where everybody's in love with someone who's in love with someone else. Chekhov can make it compelling (watch "Vanya on 42nd Street" for recent proof of this), but Allen obviously had other things in mind with this film. I guess it was his antidote to "Hannah and Her Sisters," where similar love triangles (and other polygons) played out, but the end result was much happier. Allen usually doesn't like to give us such neat endings, so a year later we get "September," in which little is resolved and most of the characters end up back where they started. It's a fascinating film in its own way, but it doesn't bear repeated viewings.

Made by Woody Allen in his serious mode, the drama "September" is not as impressive and fine as "Another Woman" but it is still an interesting movie. Chekhov said once about the characters in his plays, "People sit at the table, drink tea, talk politics, and at the same time their hearts get broken". In this regard, Allen's "September' is a very Chekhovian movie ("Uncle Vanya" comes to mind first). The film takes place inside a country house in Vermont where several characters, friends and relatives of Lane (Mia Farrow), a fragile and troubled young woman recovering from a nervous breakdown, get together for a rainy weekend in the end of the Summer. The weekend will be filled with the drinks, conversations, tender and delicate music. Six characters will fell in and out of love; the friendships will be betrayed, the hearts will be broken, a hidden family secret will come out. Along with the characters, we will reflect on love, mother-daughter complicated relationship, family secrets, aging, loneliness, longing, emotional crises, and self doubt as six cultured and intelligent individuals will try to find the meaning and the purpose in their lives. The film brings to mind John Cheever's observation: "The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment." There are a lot of disappointments, regrets and unhappiness in the characters of "September" but the weekend will be over, the rain will stop. There will be the possibility of hope in the future. The sun always comes after the rain.

Mia Farrow plays suicidal Lane, a child-like woman hoping to sell off the family cottage in Vermont so she can start life anew in New York City; she's surrounded for the weekend by her married friend (Dianne Wiest), a charming, struggling writer (Sam Waterston), an elderly neighbor who harbors a crush on Lane (Denholm Elliott), and Lane's demonstrative mama (Elaine Stritch) and her latest husband (Jack Warden). Seems mother and daughter were once the subjects of a scandalous murder-trial from years ago (shades of Lana Turner and daughter Cheryl), and Lane's emotional showdown with her mother provides an intense acting moment between Farrow and Stritch. Claustrophobic Woody Allen drama was one of the writer-director's biggest commercial and critical failures (he filmed it twice with two separate casts--this is the second version, the original remains unseen). It's a nearly-humorless study of the dangers of repression, yet the picture doesn't learn from itself--the handling is repressed as well--and few of these characters seem improved by the finale. Allen's languid pacing nearly comes to a halt during an electrical storm (at just 85 minutes, "September" doesn't exactly utilize its time wisely); however, this group of privately-tortured souls is as fascinating as the family in Allen's "Interiors." In fact, of the two films, this may be the better effort. *** from ****