Woody Allen writes, directs, and stars in his 1993 picture, which also features Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston and Jerry Adler. Larry (Allen) and Carol Lipton (Keaton) are a middle-aged couple living a quiet, uneventful life in New York. He works as a book editor, she "thinks about opening her own restaurant." However, their lives turn upside down when their neighbor, Lillian House (Lynn Cohen) suddenly dies of a heart attack. Having had coffee with her the night before, the Liptons thought she seemed in perfectly good spirits and health. Carol, deeply bothered by this abrupt turn of events, begins to suspect her widow, Paul (Adler), when he shows no outward signs of grieving. Larry is unconvinced, so Carol turns to their friend Ted (Alda), who helps her unearth the true story of what happened to Lillian. Meanwhile, Larry entertains Marcia Fox (Huston) a popular author whose next book he hopes to edit, and the couple's separate pursuits with other people causes some mutual jealousy. I am a huge fan of Allen's, and while I certainly enjoyed this film, it is not one of my favorites -- and that's probably because even a mediocre Allen film is good, which sets the bar pretty high. It isn't quite comedy, but also not suspenseful enough to be a full-fledged mystery. I think this indecisiveness detracted from the story, and it could have been much more effective had Allen picked one route and stuck with it. Although the plot suffered from occasional inconsistencies, I was overall satisfied with it. The acting is great, as always, as is the writing. In all, I was intrigued by the film and enjoyed it. It is definitely worth a watch, but it is not one of my favorite Allen films.
Should you see it: Yes
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment