SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

bkoganbing Looking at September I think Woody Allen might have been interested in doing his own version of Long Day's Journey Into Night with this production. The problem is that the characters here are not even half as interesting as O'Neill's autobiographical Tyrone family.Try as I might I just could not get into this story. Apparently neither could Woody, I see he refilmed the entire story with three different players from those he started with. And he was ready to do it again. Who did Woody Allen think he was, Erich Von Stroheim?Mia Farrow who was married to Allen at the time is recovering from a nervous breakdown and she's in Vermont at the old family homestead to sell the place. Her famous actress mom, Elaine Stritch is up there as well with stepfather Jack Warden and Stritch has different plans for the place than Farrow does. Also up there are Stritch's prospective biographer Sam Waterston and other friends Denholm Elliott and Dianne Weist. Who could know that Weist would windup as Waterston's boss on Law and Order and that he'd eventually be the boss as well.Stritch's role is not to terribly disguised as Lana Turner with Mia as Cheryl Crane. I'm surprised that Lana didn't sue Woody Allen. I would have.Stritch and Warden come off the best, they are at least mildly interesting. The rest you don't really care about as we hear about this one loves that one, but that one loves the other, who loves still another. Except for Stritch who thinks the world revolves around her.Woody should stick to comedy.

jzappa If you could take several scenarios of requited and unrequited love from assorted times in your life and merge them all for an interior weekend in the country, it would be in the same vein as Woody Allen's very subtle chamber drama. There are six main characters, each one of them yearning to be loved and cared for. And they all love somebody, but generally not the one who loves them. The weekend comes down to a succession of quiet histrionic waltzes, during which each character moves anxiously from room to room, quietly struggling to be alone with the one they desperately love, and away from the person who eats, sleeps and breathes them.The only demonstrative person in the summer house is the aging but still lively celebrity playgirl. Played by Elaine Stritch, she is a woman who has had a full and exhilarating life and become what Sam Waterston refers to as a "survivor." At one point she says, "Jesus! Look at my hands. Now really, I am too young for liver spots. Maybe I can merge them into a tan." She has been married several times, presently to Jack Warden, an industrialist who latches onto this woman who was once a sex symbol.Stritch has come out to accompany her daughter, Mia Farrow, who has been living there for some time, coming around from a suicide attempt. For several months, Farrow's devoted friend has been Denholm Elliott, a timid, reserved neighbor. Farrow has let Elliott feel close to her, but she feels love just for Waterston, a writer who has moved nearby for the summer. Waterston has somewhat led her on. But this weekend, Farrow has her best friend Dianne Wiest over, her closest friend. And now Waterston has developed immense feelings for Wiest. At the same time, there is a bizarre family secret crouching under the incongruous dialogue of the mother and the daughter, a skeleton that will spout from the closet later in an instant of vexation.Woody doesn't seem so heady with Ingmar or Fellini on this serious bout, but what is he up to? His narrative is all too shipshape to make a chaotic, cerebrally entangled modern movie. In the tidy coupling of the ensemble, Allen nearly appears as if to be fashioning a Renaissance farce. And that may be his design. Allen's intention of September was to be like "a play on film," an odd intention, but encloses everyone's environment and thus encloses their perceptions. When we fall in love, we are so enraptured in the infinite oneness of ourselves and the object of our love that we cannot see how the common constellations reproduce themselves.Allen shot the film twice. It first had Sam Shepard in Sam Waterston's role, Maureen O'Sullivan in Elaine Stritch's, and Charles Durning in Denholm Elliott's. During editing, he decided to re-write it, re-cast it, and re-shoot it, which may sound excessive but after finally seeing the movie, I understand why such painstaking nuances were so important to him. Most of the essential exploits transpire in the economy and inflection of remarks and phrases. Through the particular words that the actors use and don't, his characters suggest precisely how much of what they say is honest, and how much is diplomatic. When Farrow softly responds to Elliott, anyone but Elliott would know quickly that she does not and never will love him, as when Waterston talks to Farrow.How is it that the Farrow character is intuitive enough to know what to say to Elliott, but not discerning enough to read the same words when they are being said to her, or confident enough to say the words she wants to say to certain people? That is the fundamental conundrum of Woody's rather straightforward psychological drama. We can distinctly peg the people we are not in love with, but when we view the people we love, we can see merely what we want so badly to see, or hear just what we can bear to hear, thus the "play" being shot in long takes with very few close-ups.

Graham Greene September seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it work within the Allen filmography, one that seems synonymous with that period in the late 80's when he was trying to take on weightier issues that drew stylistically on the films of Ingmar Bergman (see Another Woman, Husbands and Wives, Crimes and Misdemeanours and elements of Hannah and Her Sisters for more), and one that has the famous back-story of Allen shooting the film once, assembling a rough-cut, deciding he hated it, re-writing the script, re-casting the film and eventually re-shooting the same story on a sound-stage in upstate New York. His intention... to create an isolated and claustrophobic atmosphere in which he could develop a modern-day chamber-piece that would stand more as a filmed play as opposed to a major motion picture!! Still, it showed that he was taking risks rather than playing it safe, something that he would end up doing during the latter half of the 90's and the first half of the new millennium.The basic story of the film concerns six main protagonists who are gathered together at an idyllic summer house in Vermont. The house belongs to Lane (Farrow), who is recuperating from a nervous breakdown, a failed relationship and years of guilt and speculation involving the murder of her abusive step-father. Amongst the group is Peter (Sam Waterston), a struggling writer who is lodging with Lane and who Lane has a crush on. Peter however, is in love with Lane's friend Stephanie (Diane Wiest), who is staying at the summer house to escape the tedium of her husband while her children are away at camp. Stephanie seems close to Howard (Denholm Eliot) who has hidden feelings from Lane, whilst between the four of them there is Lane's vibrant and gregarious mother Diane (Elaine Stritch) and her new lover Lloyd (Jack Warden). The set-up seems ripe for the kind of comedic misunderstandings usually found in the greatest of French farce (or even Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night!!), but instead, Allen uses the notion of couples "in love with someone, in love with someone else" to mine deeper questions involving the need for love, understanding and acceptance in the face of loneliness and isolation.Throughout the film we never stray from the stifling claustrophobia of the summer house, with Allen carefully cutting backwards and forwards between the main characters and their escalating interactions that can only lead to a scene of devastating emotional fall out!! As a result, September is a purposely stagy film that relies heavily on scenes of dialog punctuated by moments of piercing silence. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, then the film most certainly isn't for you, with Allen and long-term cinematographer Carlo Di Palma shooting much of the film in long, unbroken takes, with very few close-ups (the obvious exception being the closing scenes of dysfunction), and generally allowing scenes to play out in semi-darkened rooms lit by candle-light or very low sepia bulbs. The feeling that this creates is one of mystery and desperation, offering many secluded areas for the group to break away and take solace in their secrets, whilst also going to some lengths to visualise the deep-seated animosity that lies at the heart of the film's central characters.The film could easily be seen as the middle-part of Allen's dramatic trilogy, which began with the very bleak Interiors in 1978 and climaxed with the very bleak but wholly more interesting Another Woman from 1987. On the whole, September is a more enjoyable film than Interiors (if it is possible to enjoy such a bleak and miserable film), though for me lacked the depth of further interpretation that was so central to Another Woman. The story can at times be a little slow, despite the film clocking in at just under an hour and twenty-minutes, but it is worth sticking with as far as I'm concerned, particularly for the great performances and that jaw-dropping moment towards the end of the film, in which the root of Lane's problems and the deep-seated animosity towards her mother is finally revealed.The performances are fine throughout, though it is Farrow (in possibly her best performance ever... alongside The Purple Rose of Cairo) and Wiest who really stand out as something spectacular. It's a film that I particularly enjoy (though I'm someone who can overlook the flaws in Shadows and Fog and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion to see the great work lurking beneath), and I feel it shows Allen's deft understanding of character, atmosphere, design and direction in pulling off such a dour and depressing piece of work. Although it could be argued that the subsequent Crimes and Misdemeanours and Husbands and Wives were also fairly dark and dramatic films, they were undercut by Allen's verbal wit and enough moments of lighter comedy. Interiors, September and Another Woman are films without laughs and devoid of the usual Allen wit... with the director instead choosing to ask deeper questions about life, love and loneliness. The characters here are forced to dig through the secrets of the past (and the present), whilst at the same time, staring life full in the face, in order to get to the root of their various problems and complications, but ultimately find a (slim) glimmer of hope drifting far on the horizon.As with 90% of Allen's work, September is a perfectly made film with an interesting story, strong characters and an impeccable design. Though it perhaps tries too hard to develop its overtly serious tone, it should be commended for trying to do something stylistically different, whilst simultaneously offering us a film for adults about adults, that isn't afraid to present the darker aspects of life. It may fall somewhat outside the top-ten of Allen-related masterworks, but regardless, it is well made, impeccably acted and occasionally quite moving, and deserves to find an audience that is willing to invest some time in it.

rtcnz This is a good film, and would make a truly GREAT theatrical performance.The low IMDb rating is attributable to the moments when the film slipped a little, and Woody Allen's effort, instead of his genius, comes through.But this film is made by Lane's slowly crumbling edifice and her mother's brash incompetence. The plot regarding their tragic past is captivating, and makes the romantic plots appear frivolous. The 'climax' scene is excellent, complete with a truly GREAT twist.This film is a much better movie than the 6.1 IMDb rating gave it credit for. I got really drawn into this movie. I found myself quite dumbstruck. And Lane's anguish was so real.For fans of Woody Allen's more "somber" works, must-see. And I guarantee it's better than Match Point.