Interiors

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.

Three sisters find their lives spinning out of control in the wake of their parents' sudden, unexpected divorce.

What do we have here? A Woody Allen film with no comedy, and no Woody. We have Joel Schumacher as the costume designer (before his years as director) and something that amounts to a Bergmanesque family drama, though without the full Scandinavian despair.

Vincent Canby wrote, "My problem with Interiors is that although I admire the performances and isolated moments, as well as the techniques and the sheer, headlong courage of this great, comic, film-making philosopher, I haven't any real idea what the film is up to."

The criticism aside, Canby calls Allen out for being heavy on the philosophy references, with the dense writing of Allen that he is known for and makes his films his own. Is this Bergman? No. Is it Allen trying to be Bergman? Maybe. But it has Allen all over it, in the dialogue, and that has some value in and of itself.

Woody Allen seems to channel one of his idols, Ingmar Bergman, in this film about the struggles in the relationships within a family, and the feelings of not having lived up to one's potential in life. Things invariably change and they don't work out ideally or as expected, leading to angst and quiet forms of desperation. We see that in each of the three daughters despite their successes (one is a published poet, another is an actor who gets parts in TV movies, and the third is very bright but still finding herself), one's partner (a published author), and we see it most of all in their mother, who has been left by her husband after a long marriage.

The film explores the long relationships within a family, with various rivalries and grievances forming over the years and never really going away, and it did a reasonably good at it. The film doesn't demonize the father for finding someone else and seeking a divorce, but at the same, what that means for the mother is heartbreaking. Ironically, the one caring for her the most, and who amplifies her pain for the viewer, is the one who feels never got the same kind of attention when younger, and the situation is reversed with the father. It's those kinds of things that make the film strong, that and an excellent ending scene, the flashbacks included (it could have used more of these).

Still though, this was a film that it was hard to get jazzed over. I don't think the plot came together all that well or was fully realized, an example of which is the attempted rape by the brother-in-law in the garage, which then goes nowhere. The film's focus is the window into these dysfunctional relationships and the cruelty of change, not a fully buttoned up and cookie cutter story, something I liked about it, but still it felt meandering in its subplots. I also think it was less successful in its showing the various artists wrestle with their feelings of inadequacy, where it seemed often forced in its dialogue, with affluent characters whining in one way or another. I never got fully invested in them, and that's the reason for the average review score.

Interiors is one of the most divisive films of one of the most love-it-hate-it directors. For me Interiors is not one of Allen's best films(Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanours, Manhatten, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives) with some dialogue monologues that ramble on a bit too much, but when it comes to his most underrated films Interiors is very high on the list. It is very easy to see why people wouldn't like it with how bleak it is and how it's different from much of what Allen has done, but those are hardly reasons to dismiss Interiors because apart from the occasional rambling it is a great film. It is very stylishly shot with good use of locations, probably Allen's second most visually striking 70s film after Manhattan. Like Annie Hall, there's no music score and that's not a bad thing at all, Interiors is a very intimate and intricate film and having no music added to that quality. Much of the dialogue is full of insight and pathos, to me it did have dramatic weight and it is one of Allen's most honest films along with Husbands and Wives. The screenplay is not "funny" as such and is not as quotable as Annie Hall, but it wasn't ever meant to be. The story is paced deliberately but how Interiors was written and performed ensures that it isn't dull, it was very moving(personally it didn't topple into melodrama) and layered storytelling- didn't notice any convolutions- deftly handled. Allen directs assuredly in one of his more restrained directing jobs. The characters are neurotic and not the most likable, but are written and performed with such compelling realism that in the end there is some sympathy felt for them. The cast was a talented one in the first place, and none of them disappoint. Especially good are Geraldine Page, in one of her best performances, in very frightening and heart-breakingly tormented form and Mary Beth Hurt, the centrepiece of the story and is very affecting. Maureen Stapleton is a breath of fresh air as the most lively character- an anti thesis to the rest of the characters but not an out of place one- and E.G. Marshall brings a great deal of quiet dignity. Diane Keaton when it comes to Woody Allen films is better in Annie Hall and Manhattan but plays a purposefully shrill character with gusto. Richard Jordan and Sam Waterson are fine. Kristin Griffith is good too but her part seemed underwritten. All in all, won't be for everybody but a great film from personal perspective and one of Woody Allen's most underrated. 9/10 Bethany Cox