Another Woman

Bergmanesque territory for Allen again, this is an intriguing and well directed film in Bergman's style, however unlike in some of Allen's earlier Bergman ventures this one feels like less of a copy and more so just a unique drama. The film is philosophical without the ideas seeming intangible, and some of the points are very interesting, like how the pain of others can cause one to realise one's own, and how fascinating it is to hear someone else's revelations. It is not a minute too long, and the dialogue is great, but if one was to flaw it, Allen's choice of music seems a little off-balance, the narration is a touch cold, and whilst not bad, the performances are generally rather ordinary. But all these problems are very slight, as the overall production is fascinating and thought-provoking stuff about how one reflects on oneself.

Devastating, unlike anything I've seen from Woody Allen so far. This was a very quiet, deliberately paced exploration into a woman facing a mid-life crisis, played with extraordinary skill by Gena Rowlands. It leaned maybe a little too much on narration when it could have utilized her talent as an actress instead, but that's a small complaint when the final result is so powerful.

Rowlands' Marion Post rents an apartment in order to work on her novel and, through hearing the patients of the psychiatrist's office next door, slowly begins to examine her life and the choices that she has made. We see her interact with those surrounding her, be it her husband, her daughter, her brother, but she always feels a level removed from all of them. Over the years she has isolated herself from everyone around her and examines them rather than interacts, and Rowlands plays this with a knowledge so fitting and serene.

There's an extended dream sequence a little over halfway through the picture that is one of the most surreal, emotional and illuminating experiences I've had in a Woody Allen picture and one of my favorite moments in the twenty or so films of his I've seen. It imagines her life as a stage play that she watches take place, and it opens the world back up to Marion, which is displayed in master strokes on the all-telling face of Rowlands. She gives a performance for the ages here, working mostly from the inside out, although there are a few devastating scenes of her letting herself fall apart.

I was surprised at how little Mia Farrow was in it, given that she's on the cover for it and the plot synopsis makes her part seem a lot more major, but she manages to leave an impression, although the most surprising of the supporting cast was Gene Hackman. I'm used to seeing him (and loving him) in varying crime pictures, so it was nice to see him take on a more grounded and every day character, which despite only appearing for a brief time he manages to leave a lasting impression with his emotionally conflicted portrayal. You can really feel this character that he displays, feel his love and heartache in every breath.

Still, the film absolutely belongs to Rowlands, who resonated so deeply inside of me and will surely stick there for a while. She knocks it out of the park in a film that is so unique, cerebral and magnificent from Woody Allen.

I just watched this last night, and I've been thinking about it all day. What an amazing film! So poignant, so subtle. A woman re-evaluates her life and begins to lament the choices she made years ago. Such a simple premise, such immense possibilities.

This film demands a lot of its audience. There is no humor, no action, and very little plot. Most people won't be into this at all, I imagine, which is a shame. This film offers a really wonderful perspective on a subject that is so very rarely addressed in films today: aging. This film is about a woman taking stock of her life at the age of fifty. She looks back, she sees the choices she made and how they turned out. She sees the compromises she made to get where she is today (very successful, head of a philosophy department, about to write another book), and she begins to appreciate, for the first time, what those compromises cost.

This is, in my opinion, the central tragedy of human existence. You only get one shot at life, and no one ever tells you how to manage it. So, you make mistakes, and one day, when you're fifty, you've finally learned enough to start making the right choices. But, by that time, is it too late? This film doesn't answer that question, at least not for its central character. But it does offer hope.

The film is propelled by several dynamite performances. But, even in such a crowded field of great performances, it is not difficult to pick out Gena Rowlands, who gives an unforgettably nuanced performance as Marion, the film's central character.

You may notice that this film is propelled by a number of coincidences. Every chance encounter, however, has an eerie relevance to Marion's soul-searching. It may look contrived, but it isn't. These aren't coincidences at all. The pregnant woman, played by Mia Farrow, is instrumental in setting up each of these 'coincidences', and that character's name is Hope. I was half-expecting a "Fight Club" revelation at the end, but it never came, which is good. This film could stand both ways, and it's better for the director to leave the audience to consider the relationship between Hope and Marion on their own. Like I said, I've been thinking about it all day.

It's worth noting that in 1978, ten years before he made "Another Woman," Woody Allen created another quiet film, a drama with prominent Bergmanesque influences. The film was called "Interiors," and it was a tribute, or an American take on Bergman's "Cries and Whispers." "Interiors" examined the relationships of three sisters and their husbands in the face of the divorce of their dominant mother and detached father. The film essentially detailed the fall of "interiors," or illusory worlds created by the dominant mother in the face of tragedy and loneliness.

"Another Woman," made ten years later, shares similar themes with "Interiors," but it is more akin to Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" than to "Cries and Whispers." It is a story of a university professor, played spectacularly by Gena Rowlands, in whom something stirs when she overhears a therapy session with a young 30-something woman who is discontent with her life. The professor, Marion, feels an emptiness rise inside her - an emptiness that had settled there years before, that she can consciously feel now. Little by little, like in "Interiors," the world she has constructed for herself, a cold, cerebral world, deconstructs.

Marion despairs, enters into conflicts with herself, and questions endlessly trying to reason her way out of her malaise. But the cure for her malaise is not rational resolution and she, realizing that her strongest characteristic (namely her rational intelligence) is not enough to untangle what worries her, finds herself entirely helpless in the face of an unraveling existence.

Her drama is very much like the drama of Professor Isak Borg from Bergman's film, a man on his way to receive a medal for his lifetime achievements. And, on the road, he also succumbs to the same malaise as Marion, the same questioning and the same painful re-evaluation. The horror shared by both Marion and Professor Borg, of course, is that despite their highly lauded accomplishments and their intellectual self-satisfaction, they feel void. There must, in other words, be something else to life than strictly intellectual work, however satisfying it may be.

In Bergman (both "Cries and Whispers" and "Wild Strawberries") and in Allen (both "Interiors" and "Another Woman") life falls under question. The entire existence is evaluated, its worth and meaning doubted. In "Interiors" and "Cries and Whispers," however, the meaninglessness pervades everything in the films - the dialogues, behaviors and even visuals. The sisters in "Interiors" shatter the mother's reality and find nothingness - they continue as they were, much like the two sisters in "Cries and Whispers" for whom the death of their young sister changed absolutely nothing, and only confirmed their beliefs about the world.

However, "Another Woman" is not as stark (though it is stark indeed at times). Marion grabs at the chance to re-evaluate the life she feels she painfully wasted and tries to start again. It's not a false choice, or a gimmick on Allen's part, but it's a true depiction of Marion's sincere desire to continue to struggle because her life does have value for her. She rediscovers a passion for the struggle and her motivation is the same curiosity that made her go through the questioning process in the first place.

"Another Woman" is a testament to the fact that Woody Allen was still at the top of his game in the late 1980s. It is a brilliant, honest and (surprisingly) warm film. It is not a remake or rip-off of Bergman's work, though it is highly influenced by him (which shouldn't seem so surprising to anyone, because Bergman himself was influenced by the most basic questions of existence). "Another Woman" is an existential film that is both uncompromising and not hopeless. It's one of my favorite Woody Allen films and it reveals to us not only a great American director, but one whose films are of worldly greatness.

This is by far my favorite Woody Allen straight drama (most of his other "serious" films, like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Husbands & Wives, have comedic moments). His third "heavy film" (after Interiors and September) is chamber drama, beautifully acted and directed. Most of the elements found in Allen's other post "Annie Hall" films are here (the upper crust Manhattan intellectuals, dysfunctional relationships), but what's missing are the laughs. The film is very serious stuff, involving repressed emotions and alienation. There is simply no place for Woody's usually nervous character in Another Woman. You can still tell that this is one of his films because of the characterizations. Gena Rowlands is in nearly every scene and is classy, as usual, and the rest of the ensemble cast is just as good. My favorites were Gene Hackman and Ian Holm. The title is fairly clever as well; it doesn't refer to what you might think.