Hannah e le sue sorelle

In "Hannah and her Sisters," Woody Allen has created a funny, poignant, and sweet film about three very different sisters.

The focus is Hannah (Mia Farrow), a successful actress currently married to Elliot (Michael Caine) and divorced from Mickey (Woody Allen).

Hannah is more of a mother figure to her sisters, Holly and Lee (Dianne Wiest and Barbara Hershey) than their own mother (Farrow's real-life mother, Maureen O'Sullivan) an alcoholic performer who likes to flirt with younger men, to the fury of her husband.

Hannah handles her mother, puts up with Holly constantly borrowing money and then picking fights with her in that mother/daughter fashion, but she doesn't know that her sister Lee is having an affair with Elliot. And so it goes, as Thanksgivings pass and the women attempt to straighten out their lives.

This is one of Woody Allen's best films - I won't say best, because I love Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors more.

The humorous parts of the films are provided by Wiest and Allen, and some of the lines and situations are hilarious: Holly and Mickey's disastrous date ("I had a great time. It was just like the Nurenberg trials"), Mickey's contemplation of suicide, and Mickey's fear of a brain tumor.

Allen is brilliant as a man who believes he's living in a godless world but wants to believe. Though Jewish, he decides to become Catholic, bringing home religious info with his mayonnaise and Wonder Bread; when that doesn't work out, he talks to the Hari Krishna in the park.

Wiest is as adorable as she is fantastic as a manic-depressive who goes from acting (including auditioning for a musical when she can't sing), catering (until her partner, played by Carrie Fisher, steals the man she thinks is her boyfriend), and finally writing.

The rest of the cast is magnificent and tackle some of the more serious moments of the movie: Michael Caine as Hannah's husband, looking for love in all the wrong places; Max von Sydow, Lee's tortured artist boyfriend; and Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O'Sullivan as the sisters' parents, in an imperfect marriage filled with love, booze, and jealousy.

Hershey is lovely as a confused woman who adores her sister but looks to Caine for a way out of her relationship with a controlling boyfriend.

The film, of course, is filled with New York sights and sounds, including Bobby Short ("You don't deserve Cole Porter," Mickey screams at Holly. "You should stick with those rock musicians who look like they murdered their parents"), the opera, Central Park, etc., that give Allen's films their special atmosphere (until "Match Point," that is, which has a special atmosphere all its own).

A great film with Allen asking again about the meaning of life and, again, coming up with some good answers.

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Probably when all is said and done, my favorite Allen movie. This is definitely one of those examples where the sum is greater than the parts. Great shots of New York (specifically the city's architecture), great situations, great parties and great music

Among the Manhattan-dwelling characters is Michael Caine, who is married to Hannah (Mia Farrow) but lusts after her sister (Barbara Hershey) who lives with a tormented artist (Max Von Sydow.) Hannah's ex-husband (Woody Allen) starts dating her other sister (Diane Weist) who wants to date Sam Waterston, even though he'd rather date her friend (Carrie Fisher).

In addition to the cameo by Julia Louise Dreyfuss, the film features two supporting performances by old school actors, Lloyd Nolan and Mia Farrow's real life mom, the original Jane in the Tarzan movies, Maureen O'Sullivan.

If that's not enough, Allen throws in plenty of his trademark hypochondria hysteria, questioning the meaning of the universe and whether God exists.

Arguably Woody Allen's best production with the exception of "Annie Hall". The film follows three sisters (Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest) through their careers and their relationships. Farrow is the backbone that keeps everything together. However, husband Michael Caine (Oscar-winning) has his eye of Hershey and something might come of his crush. Max Von Sydow is seeing Hershey, but he may not be enough to curve her lust. Wiest seems to be the odd one out as she struggles with everything, thinking of herself as second-rate to sister Farrow. You know she might fit in well with Farrow's ex-husband (the priceless Allen). A wild film of vivid characters that entertains to the paramount. Allen received an Oscar for his screenplay and was nominated yet again for his dead-on direction. Not a perfect film, but Allen's amazing story-telling and his superb creation of memorable characters and sequences make "Hannah and Her Sisters" one of the better films of the 1980s. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

While I am a Woody Allen fanatic, I'm not sure if I agree with the minority of Woody fans who claim this is his best film, instead of "Annie Hall". Sure, I would be quick to elect "Annie" as Woody's best, but then I regard "Manhattan", "Stardust Memories", "Crimes & Misdemeanors", as well as "Hannah And Her Sisters", and I become unsure. This is certainly one of Woody's most mature films, and I would freely place it in my top five of Woody's works. It nicely balances comedy with drama, and it also began a new era of high accomplishment for Woody. Functioning as an ensemble drama loosely organized around three sisters, "Hannah" chronicles several stories at once. The film has an incredibly warm, intimate feeling about it, as people talk in their earth-toned apartments over J.S. Bach or stroll through the city's crisp autumn air. What rings most true about this film is that it doesn't end quite the way you thought it would (the words "too tidy" and "unpunished" get unfairly used a lot), yet it ends as it should.

Ironically, Hannah (played by Mia Farrow) doesn't fare too deeply in the film. The eldest of three, she's the family matriarch soothing her aging parents, a showbiz couple reluctantly settling into old age and blaming each other for it. Her husband Elliot (Michael Caine expertly stuttering & flushing) is consumed with guilt over his heavy crush on Hannah's sensuous, down-to-earth sister, Lee. Lee is slowly pulling away from her failing relationship with Frederick (the always excellent Max Von Sydow), a horribly misanthropic curmudgeon whose reliance on her as his last link to humanity becomes suffocating. The youngest sister, Holly (Dianne Wiest - kicking ass as usual), is a nervous, impatient actress whose insecurity and lack of success lead to competing with her best friend April over work and men. Meanwhile, Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Woody), a severe hypochondriac, is trying desperately to accept his eventual mortality and still find some meaning in life, which it what it seems all the other characters are trying to do. I won't say where the stories are going or where they all end up, but I will say the ensemble cast is all-around great, Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest are definitely the stand-outs here (their Oscars were well-deserved), but Max Von Sydow and Barbara Hershey do quite fine as well. As for Woody - Mickey is the kind of character that fans were probably waiting for him to play for years, and he pulls it off with his classic ticks & twitches.

Woody's evident genius is shown here by juggling the separate stories back & forth so fluidly. Most attention seems to be focused on Elliot and Lee during the first half (both conflicted & confused), while the second half slightly centers around Mickey and Holly (both nervous & unsure). Mickey operates mostly as an outsider and the strength of his story doesn't pertain too much to "the sisters" (although there are two hysterical flashbacks sequences, one involving Hannah and the other detailing a disastrous date with Holly). Another masterstroke on Woody's part are the internal voice-overs. Woody is too smart to know that there are certain thoughts a person has that will exist only in their head, and extracting these feelings into some kind of dialogue with another person would seem forced. It's casual pacing, novelistic endeavors, vivid characters, cozy settings, heartfelt music and sharp, candid dialogue are what makes this film hold up beautifully for me after dozens of viewings. It's an absolute Woody Allen film.

"Hannah and Her Sisters" is a comedy/drama (though mostly drama) about a dozen characters and their stories, all connecting back to three sisters: Hannah (Mia Farrow), Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). Hannah is the favorite, talented and kind, Lee is almost equally favored, but Holly is the outcast, with a past of drugs and always asking for money. Other characters include Hannah's hypochondriac ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen), her current husband Elliot (Michael Caine), Lee's boyfriend Frederic (Max von Sydow) and Holly's friend April (Carrie Fisher).

Like I said before, this is not so much a comedy as it is a drama. The comedy that's in it fits, and is good, but the drama is better. Elliot's secret love for Lee is handled in a romantic way, but their infidelity is still seen as wrong, and you feel their guilt and inner turmoil. Mickey thinks he has a brain tumor, he finds out he doesn't and then he feels worse, and starts desperately searching for a purpose to live. All the other stories are equally dramatic, with comedy fittingly sprinkled in places too.

The acting is quite good, everyone playing their part perfectly, whether it's big or small. The film's best performances come from Allen (in what's no doubt his best performance) and Dianne Wiest as the extremely under-confident youngest sister. Allen and Wiest don't necessarily carry the film, as there's no need to, but their segments were certainly the best, for me at least. The rest of the cast put forward too, especially Max von Sydow and Michael Caine in his first (and so far his only deserving) Oscar win.

Woody Allen's direction is at the top of its form here too, much like "Annie Hall" and his other greats. The camera work and use of voice overs are excellent. For instance, there is an intensely dramatic scene where the three sisters have lunch together and for the entire scene the camera rotates around the table, the speaker not always in the frame. His script is great too, it knows when to be dramatic and when to be funny and when to be both.

One of Allen's very best, 8/10.