Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

oOoBarracuda Obligatory "Woody Allen opens a film like no one else is capable of, always in an amazing engaging way" sentence. Seriously though, I say this every time because it's always true. By this point, I would be shocked if a Woody Allen film had a poor opening. The 1986 feature of Woody Allen's found him starring as a hypochondriac ex-husband of Hannah (Mia Farrow) and examined the lives of she and her sisters and their various life trials over the span of two years at Thanksgiving. Hannah and Her Sisters was another of Allen's film to have a largely serious tone as the issues of infidelity and the meaning of life was explored. Through Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen achieved, again, the depth of raw human emotions and the power they can have over someone.Sisters Hannah (Mia Farrow), Holly (Dianne Wiest), and Lee (Barbara Hershey) had their share of upheaval raised by showbiz parents. Their mother believes she is still in her prime and able to woo any man which usually means she is neglectful towards the girls' father. With a family full of people who were ill-equipped to take care of themselves, Hannah stepped up and acted as the chief adult of the family, tending to everyone's needs and pushing her own aside. This aspect of Hannah's life has extended into her marriage. Hannah's husband Elliot (Michael Caine) has grown bored of his marriage to the saint that he thinks Hannah is and has moved his attention toward her sister, Lee. Lee is a vulnerable alcoholic seemingly awaiting someone to take her on as a project and make her into a functioning adult. Lee has lived with Frederick (Max Von Sydow) for years as he teaches her about art and life and gives him some connection to the outside world, as he detests everyone except Lee. Holly is struggling with her calling in life as she goes to countless auditions trying to make it as an artist and also run the catering business with her friend as her other pet project. Holly, especially, goes to Hannah for everything including money to survive. Hannah is the only one who has a good handle on her life. She believes she has a good marriage, she has a good relationship with her ex-husband, Mickey (Woody Allen) whom she shares two children with. Hannah wants so badly for everyone in her life to be happy that she even set up Mickey with her sister Holly after her divorce. Sometimes, though, being the one who always fixes every problem they come across can make those closest to them feel unneeded, feelings Elliot blames for pursuing an affair with Hannah's sister. When he contemplates telling Hannah he is in love with Lee, the perfect life Hannah has tried so diligently to manage may crash under the weight of her husband;'s unfulfillment.Hannah and Her Sisters is largely told as two independent stories only occasionally intersecting and that format works for me anyway, but especially with the brilliant writing and directing of Woody Allen. Acting and the relatability of the characters usually have little influence over how I view a film. Hannah and Her Sisters, however, had a character so relatable to me, I felt like I was watching myself on screen. Always the philosopher, I struggle with the concept of life and its meaning and the purpose of a finite existence. Because I am so uneasy about a number of questions I struggle with about life and their persistence in my mind, the character of Mickey was one that hit especially close to my heart. Many a night have found me waking up in a cold sweat with the sudden realization that we are spinning on a ball in space that will someday cease to exist, driven to a dread that I can't shake without talking myself down. I'm basically a female version of Woody Allen which probably explains why I've held a soft spot in my heart all these years for his films. It's either that or the fact that I never want to visit New York as much as I do after watching one of his films, either or, probably.

antcol8 Ambition is such a tricky thing. Without ambition, Allen would never have made either Annie Hall or Manhattan. He really stretched. And I just saw Manhattan again, for the first time in years, and I found it nearly pitch perfect. Everything flows. Well, it's understandable that this level of achievement would embolden Allen to go deeper into Auteurism and Personal Cinema. But scenes like the Three Sister Luncheon in this film set the bar really high. Really high. Too high. It's not like all the characters sound like little Woody Allens. That would come later. But their dialogue is such empty Upper New York chit - chat that reveals so little about inner life. I admit it is an amazing gift, the ability to reveal and expose the inner life of superficial characters. Few filmmakers have been able to do it - I'm thinking of Renoir and The Rules of the Game. But if you're gonna go there, you'd better be READY to go there! And...well, this film is fatally infected with Toxic Middlebrow - ism, and so you can't really tell whether Woody thinks their conversations are deep and revealing or pseudo - deep and pseudo - revealing. He's good, but not good enough to make a thing like that clear.There's one scene I love: the one where Woody and Diane Wiest go on a date. She takes him to a Punk show. He retorts with Bobby Short. Bobby Short at the Carlyle equaling "Good Music" or "Real Music" tells me all I need to know about why I respect and appreciate this movie, but will never love it. The way that different kinds of Art can describe the gulf that exists between people - that is truth. And that's the same gulf I feel between this Ersatz Masterpiece and the Films in my Pantheon.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Woody Allen, and featuring Michael Caine's and Dianne Wiest's first Best Supporting Actor/Actress (Oscar winning) performances, this Oscar nominated (for Best Picture) comedy tells so many truths about relationships and life in general that it's probably his best work, and I highly recommend it. Allen's screenplay also won an Oscar, his direction was nominated, and the film received two other nominations as well.The cast is great, and deep, and includes: Barbara Hershey, Carrie Fisher, Mia Farrow, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Max von Sydow, Daniel Stern, Julie Kavner (mother Marge on TV's The Simpsons), Joanna Gleason, John Turturro, even Tony Roberts and Sam Waterson, uncredited.Allen plays a hypochondriac TV producer - Kavner's his assistant and Turturro's one of his manic writers - that thinks he's going to die from a brain tumor. He's also the ex-husband of Farrow, who's now married to Caine, who lusts after Farrow's sister Hershey, who lives with eccentric, withdrawn from society artist von Sydow, who's upset that newly rich musician Stern wants a painting to match his puce couch.Wiest plays Hannah's other sister, a former drug addict and "out of work" actress who starts a catering business with her friend Fisher, who competes with her for the affections of Waterson. O'Sullivan and Nolan play the sisters' parents: she's a former star actress, he's her "out of the limelight" husband that strayed, though they're both still happily together. When Allen's character was married to Farrow's, his low sperm count caused them to ask his business partner Roberts, with wife Gleason, to donate his so that they could have twins.The film's three parts are divided by large family gathering Thanksgiving dinner parties at Caine's and Farrow's (real life) apartment; smaller sections by silent film-like dialogue pages.

suite92 The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: We start with a Thanksgiving dinner gathering at Hannah and Elliot's house. Sisters Lee and Holly are there. Lee's husband Frederick is a bit too stand-offish for such gatherings. Holly might start in catering, and asks Hannah for a loan to get started. Elliot muses in the opening narration about his attraction to Lee, and how he should stifle it, but cannot. Father Evan and mother Norma, two veteran entertainers, entertain at piano and song.Mickey (Hannah's ex) is a hypochondriac who produces an edgy television show that is frequently in conflict with the censors. Gail tries to keep Mickey on track as he bounces from memory to memory of his past marriage and his past partnership with Norman. Perhaps worst of all, Mickey becomes convinced that he has a brain tumor.Delineation of conflicts: Mickey has to fight his hypochondria, and his slowly waning binding to Hannah. Lee and Elliot have to figure out whatever it is that is going on between them. Holly needs to figure out where she's going in life.Resolution: The threads move forward more or less organically. Nicely done.