Flick of The Day: Moonrise Kingdom

There are few mainstream film-makers that are as “ Marmite” as Wes Anderson. For those who love his work, I included, his films are a blend of fine storytelling, quirky wry humour and a distinctive visual style. For those who don’t, the visual style and humour are undone by their off kilter sensibility. This view is often summed up by an exasperated “Oh that film is so annoying”.  His best and probably best loved film is The Royal Tenenbaums while Rushmore, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou have all found a willing audience. This latter film remains my personal favourite, a beautiful and deeply funny look at the life of renowned oceanographer Zissou played by the incomparable Bill Murray.   It would be fair then to say that I was looking forward to Anderson’s latest film, Moonrise Kingdom. 

Opening with a typically melancholic credit sequence, we are introduced to the inhabitants of the island of New Penzance, an idyllic New England community in 1965. These include the Bishop family led by Walt and Laura, a pair of duelling attorneys played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand and their “troubled” teenage daughter Suzy, an excellent Kara Hayward. There is also the Island’s policeman Captain Sharp, played by Bruce Willis in fine form and a troop of scouts at Camp Ivanhoe led by Scout Master Ward, a hilariously earnest Edward Norton.

One fine morning, the Scout Master awakes to find that one of his charges has flown the coup in the night, in a funny scene reminiscent of The Shawshank Redemption. We soon learn that the missing boy is a 12 year old orphan named Sam Shakusky who has disappeared off into the hinterland of the island. He has however not gone alone and is joined as a runaway by his lady love Kara Bishop, much to the chagrin of her father Walt. The pair have been pen pals since meeting the previous Summer at a church performance of Noye’s Fludde and have resolved to run away together to escape their uneasy family life. Sam has absconded with enough camping equipment to enable a nomadic existence while Kara has brought a stack of her favourite books and borrowed her brother’s record player. Together they set off for a secluded cove which they name Moonrise Kingdom.

Of course, they are soon captured by the good hearted Captain Sharp and the deputised scouts. Walt vows that the two shall never see each other again and social services in the form of Tilda Swinton are soon on their way to take young Sam into care. However fate in the form of an epic storm intervenes. Will the island survive its onslaught? Will Scout Master Ward lead his troop to safety? Will Sam and Kara be reunited or will he be dragged off to be a ward of the state? Time will tell.

Anderson has assembled another fine ensemble cast for this film. Each actor brings an undoubted love for the script and their character to the table. Bruce Willis gives his most nuanced performance in years and that’s a sentence I did not expect to write. Bill Murray plays what now seems to be a recurring performance as a cuckolded husband in Wes Anderson films, that together with Frances McDormand forms a loving if emotionally distant parent group. The real stars are the two young protagonists Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman who bring a self-assured maturity to their roles.

The real joy of the film is how Anderson, together with co-writer Roman Coppola has managed to capture the feel of a childhood summer which feels endless at the time and yet so quickly is overcome by a return to normalcy at Summer’s end.  The attention to detail and the quirky eccentric nature of his work are spellbinding in my opinion.

It is Anderson’s most complete film and I think possibly his best live-action film to date. It, like so many of his previous films, manages to transport the viewer to a time and place that they really would like to visit in real life. This is the magic of cinema.

Flick of the Day: To Rome With Love

Of all the directors and actors to feature on the Daily Flick since its inception, Woody Allen has featured more than most, with no fewer than 5 of his films on show. Over the last few years, his work has largely been a trek through Europe and it has not been without success. London, Barcelona, and Paris have all starred and his latest film, To Rome With Love takes place in the eternal city. While each of the films from Woody's European sojourn have had their moments, it would be difficult to say they are in the same league as some of his earlier work yet average Woody Allen is still a step above many film makers.

To Rome With Love

As much a collection of disparate stories set against the backdrop of modern Rome as it is a contiguous tale, Allen has crafted his usual concoction of comedy, love and life with this film. There are four distinct tales which do not interact beyond their setting. Allen is Jerry, a retired avant garde opera director visiting the city with his wife played by the brilliant Judy Davis who discovers that his daughter's new father-in-law is a talented vocalist who can only sing in the shower. Roberto Benigni is an average Roman businessman who suddenly becomes inexplicably famous. Meanwhile a young Italian couple Antonio and Milly arrive in the city on their honeymoon and through a series of bizarre events find Penelope Cruz's prostitute pretending to be Antonio's wife in front of his relatives. Finally in perhaps the best story, Alec Baldwin is an American architect who while searching for the street he lived on thirty years previously meets a younger version of himself in the shape of Jesse Eisenberg who is lusting after his girlfriend's flirtatious friend Monica, played by Ellen Page.

While this is nowhere near classic era Woody Allen and indeed is a step down from last year's Midnight in Paris, there is still much to enjoy. Allen can still write some great one liners and it is a pleasure to see him on the big screen again as an actor for the first time since 2006's Scoop. As per usual he has assembled a fine cast with Eisenberg, Davis and Cruz getting some of the best lines.

Like Match Point and Midnight in Paris before it, this film doesn't live in a Rome that many Romans will recognise with little of the real world allowed to pollute our screens. No opportunity to film a scene in front of some Roman landmark is missed. While this method suited the storyline of Midnight in Paris which was about how people idealise places and times in their mind, it can at times be jarring here, felling too much like a foreigner's idealised vision of Rome.

An enjoyable if disjointed film then but a funny one at that. The combination of 4 different stories leaves the film lacking in a continuity of tone and without any real centre. Still, it has all the usual charm and humour of Allen to carry it through. 

Flick of the Day: Annie Hall

Romantic comedy is not a genre I often find myself enjoying but when it comes to Woody Allen, I make an exception. Considered his breakthrough film, Annie Hall is a romantic comedy with a difference. It tells the story of the failure of a relationship with a seriousness that heretofore had not been seen in Allen's work while retaining his natural humour.

Annie Hall

Allen plays a version of himself as comedian Alvy Singer who from the opening scene explains that his relationship with Annie, played by Diane Keaton, ended one year ago. The film then proceeds to tell the story of the rise and fall of their relationship through a series of vignettes. Singer is a man obsessed with the banalities of life and a need to see anti-Semitism in anyone who disagrees him.  Where he is an obsessive New York liberal, Annie is a free spirit from Wisconsin with a passion for photography. We gradually learn of Alvie's previous failed relationships and sexual failures and find that perhaps Annie is the cure for his neurosis. Ultimately the ups and downs of their relationship allow Allen to engage in musings on his favourite topics like therapy, the absurd oddities of the dating scene and the human condition while perfectly skewering the kind of upper east-side intellectuals that seem to populate Allen's films. 

Allen has never been better as an actor then in the role of Alvie, perhaps because it is almost autobiographical in tone. That said perhaps the best sequences in the film are those where Allen is taking his keen and acerbic eye to American life in the 1970's. The scene where he contrasts the WASPish preoccupations of Annie's family with his own Brooklyn Jewish roots is still hilarious today. It is this humour and the one liners which have ensured that the film hasn't become dated and still feels relevant today though the musings and cultural references have moved on. When the couple take a trip to California, Allen takes his considerable wit to skewering the kind of fake personalities and faux mysticism that populate La-la land.

        [a guest is calling his meditation guru] Party guest: Hello? I forgot my mantra.  

There is a realism at the core of the film which makes it seem more vital and true. In any other film, Annie and Alvie would waltz off into the sunset. Here, though they seem perfect for each other first it is the little flaws and obsessions in their personality which eventually drive them apart. It is typically condescending of normal Hollywood fare to attempt to assure us all that everything will work out in the end, that is not Allen's way and it isn't true to real life. Relationships have their ups and downs and sometimes they end.

Alvy Singer: Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.

A landmark film for romantic comedies, it introduced a new level of intelligence to the genre and set Woody Allen on the path to new found acceptance outside of New York and in the great cinema going public of middle America. It was also the first of three films in a row to star Diane Keaton culminating in perhaps Allen's best work Manhattan in 1979. Annie Hall beat out stiff competition from The Goodbye Girl and Star Wars to win the Best Picture Oscar for 1977.

Alvy Singer: Lyndon Johnson is a politician, you know the ethics those guys have. It's like a notch underneath child molester.

Flick of The Day: Midnight In Paris

The Daily Flick is a big fan of Woody Allen having previously reviewed three of his classics Hannah & Her Sisters, Radio Days and Manhattan. It would be fair to say that the 70's and 80's were Allen's creative heyday before he entered a largely barren period in the 90's. Thankfully, the last few years have seen a return to form with 2005's London set Match Point being followed by a string of successes like Vicky Christina Barcelona, Whatever Works, and today's flick of the day and his biggest hit ever, Midnight in Paris.

Midnight in Paris

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams are a young couple tagging along on a business trip in Paris with McAdams parents. Wilson is Gil, a bored Hollywood screenwriter who dreams of moving to Paris to be a novelist and McAdams is his vacuous fiancée Inez. Inez has no time for Gil's fantasy of living in Paris in the 1920's, an era he feels is Paris at its best. Her parents are equally disapproving, a fine waspish turn from Mimi Kennedy as her Mother and a hilariously right wing Kurt Fuller as her father. While sightseeing they bump into some of Inez friends including Michael Sheen as a boorish and pedantic academic who delights in taking pot-shots at Gil while talking at length. Gil manages to extricate himself from this group and walk the streets of Paris as night falls. As the clock strikes midnight, a 1920's car pulls up and he is beckoned inside by the revellers. Much to his surprise it is F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda and they take him on a tour of the bohemian nightspots of 1920's Paris. Along the way he meets Hemingway and Cole Porter and before the night is out has a promise from Hemingway to have Gertrude Stein played by the always watchable Kathy Bates read his novel. Gil begins to spend each night wandering Paris until at midnight he is dragged off to his fantasy much to the displeasure of Inez. He soon meets Picasso and Salvador Dali and his quirky friends, while the music plays and the night is young. He meets and gradually falls for a beautiful young woman played by Marion Cotillard. Soon he is faced with the choice of staying in his fantasy or coming back to reality.

The really enjoyable part of this film is, apart from the many fine performances, is the nostalgia for Paris in the 1920's. The city of light is lit up by the stars of the jazz age like Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Cole Porter. They are as witty and charming as you had hoped and Owen Wilson's fumbling naturalness carries him along. You can just sit there and let this wash over you and yet if anything the heart of the story is a warning about the perils of too much nostalgia. As Wilson's Gil gets dragged into his favourite period at the expense of his present, it becomes apparent that people are always harking back to a golden age. Marion Cotillard's Adriana longs for the Paris of the 1890's, La Belle Epoque while Gauguin and Degas long for the Renaissance. The lesson is that people long for the past to escape their present.

There is much to admire here and it is surely one of Allen's funniest comedies in years with a number of knowing references to his homeland of today,

Gil: I would like you to read my novel and get your opinion. 

Ernest Hemingway: I hate it. 

Gil: You haven't even read it yet. 

Ernest Hemingway: If it's bad, I'll hate it. If it's good, then I'll be envious and hate it even more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.

Overall, it is the film's feel good atmosphere that carries it along,the historical figures welcome Gil with open arms. It is always a pleasure to see Paris on screen and even the message of the film is told subtly and gently.

In conclusion then, its a fine film, perhaps Woody Allen's best in many a year. A bright and funny script leads you into the romance of Paris and there are some fine turns from Wilson, Cotillard and Kathy Bates. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: Jerry Maguire

Tom Cruise has had a storied career both on and off the screen, playing roles as diverse as a disabled Vietnam vet in Born on the 4th of July, an Irish peasant in Far and Away, lawyers, racing drivers, fighter pilots and secret agents. Up until recently he was untouchable at the box office, delivering consistent profits for everyone. However perhaps his best roles have been those very few where he has pushed himself as an actor such as today's flick of the day, Jerry Maguire, a potent mixture of comedy, romance and the vacuous nature of the corporate world.

Jerry Maguire

Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, a flick of the day favourite with Singles, Say Anything and the great  Almost Famous, this is a tale of a self centred sports agent, Jerry Maguire played by Tom Cruise, who having sold his soul decides to grow a heart with terrible consequences for his career. After writing a preaching memo about the future of his agency in the dead of night, he soon finds himself out of work, single and with a solitary client. This is the egotistical big mouth football star Rod Tidwell played by a career best Cuba Gooding Jr. In an oft parodied scene, he requests Jerry to show him the money. Jerry's only other support is an idealistic single mother Dorothy Boyd played by Renee Zellweger who follows Jerry out of the agency because she believes in him. Jerry has to try and put his life back together while doing the best for Rod and becoming romantically entangled with Dorothy. Along the way he learns how to be a better man then he ever was when on top of the world.

The real selling point for this movie is its heart. Jerry falls hard, his wife leaves him and his friends abandon him and it is only through this callous betrayal that he learns something about himself. It is an unusually nuanced performance from Cruise, giving Maguire a soulful edge. All round the cast is excellent though. Cuba Gooding Jr is as good as he has ever been as the always over the top Tidwell, the kind of irritating whiny professional sportsman we have becomes used to seeing. Zellweger makes the most of her girl next door role as the single mother who goes against her practical nature to help a man she believes in and harbours secret feelings for.

Jerry Maguire: I'm finished, I'm fucked. Twenty-four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now... I'm a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it. Because I'm cloaked in failure! I lost the number one draft picked the night before the draft! Why? Let's recap: Because a hockey player's kid made me feel like a superficial jerk. I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience! 

 Rod Tidwell: Well, boo-fucking-hoo

Crowe's script perfectly juggles the different aspects of its story from the romance between Jerry and Dorothy to the drama of the ups and downs of professional football.

Special mention has to go to young Jonathan Lipnicki as Dorothy's son Ray. He steals almost all of the scenes he is in and there is a real spark to the conversations he has with a lonely Jerry. 

Jerry Maguire: The fuckin zoo is closed, Ray. 

Ray: You said fuck. 

Jerry Maguire: Uh... yeah... I... 

Ray: Don't worry. I won't tell.

As the film moves toward a feel good and heartfelt resolution, we are left with the believe that Jerry has learned to be a better person. After all, his only real crime was to tell the truth and look where it gets him. It's a telling example of how vicious the modern world is for the individual who steps out of the corporate line.

Ultimately, the film was a massive success for all involved giving Cuba Gooding Jr his only Oscar win and yet another nomination for Cruise. A fine film, it takes a different look at the world of professional sports and the lives of the people involved.  The ending is neither trite nor overly sentimental and it makes the best of its constituent parts. I define anyone not to find the final climax compelling viewing.

Flick of The Day: High Fidelity

Adapting a classic novel for the screen is a difficult proposition. If you swerve too far from the source material, you alienate the core fanbase. On the other hand, if you are too slavish to the material, the film doesn't stand on its own two feet as a work of art. There is of course a happy medium and today's flick of the day, High Fidelity, is a pitch perfect adaptation of Nick Hornby's wonderful novel.

High Fidelity

Rob, played by the terribly likeable John Cusack, is breaking up with his girlfriend Laura. He begins to think back through his relationship failures over the years, in the hope of gaining insight as to why Laura left him. While he works through these in flashbacks, Rob expands on his life as the owner of a poorly located record shop, Championship Vinyl, where Rob and his oddball staff played by the brilliant Jack Black and Todd Louiso spend their days talking music, compiling top 5 lists and generally treating their customers poorly. Rob comes to realize that each of his failed relationships had a different cause and that he isn't doomed to be dumped. Ultimately Laura wants more from the relationship then Ron had been prepared  to give and to Rob's horror moves in with uber-annoying hippie Ian, a wonderfully over the top performance from Tim Robbins. Can Ron and Laura work it out?

This really isn't your standard rom-com about a man with relationship trouble who happens to own a record store. It is so much more. It is a film about people who put popular culture at the centre of their lives to the detriment of everything else. Rob's problem is that he still lives like a teenage boy, obsessed with music. It is very true to the source novel, despite shifting the action to Cusack's native Chicago. You don't have to a music snob to enjoy the film but there are plenty of in jokes to satisfy the trendy obscurists. The Beta Band sales drive is a personal favourite and overall there is a lot of humour. Jack Black makes the most of his turn as the obnoxious Barry, capturing perfectly the character Hornby wrote.

                                              Barry's Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love  You?" It's for my daughter's birthday. 

Barry: Yea we have it. 

Barry's Customer: Great, Great, can I have it? 

Barry: No, no, you can't. 

Barry's Customer: Why not? 

Barry: Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Stephen Frears is of course an old hand at this kind of thing, having adapted two of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy for the screen amongst other things. In short there is much to enjoy here.

The film, of course, is possessed of a great soundtrack with literally hundreds of songs and snippets of songs slipped into the film. It illustrates Rob and his friends obsession and carries the film along nicely.

Rob: I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

All in all, a great film adaptation of a classic novel. Of course the novel is still more enjoyable and better somehow but this is as fine an adaptation as I have seen in awhile. The script and the characterisations are perfect. Cusack excels as the man-child, while Jack Black plays the ignorant clown better then anyone else. If you haven't seen it, check it out.

Flick of The Day: Bridesmaids

Producer Judd Apatow and his various disciples have for better or worse dominated the Hollywood comedy genre for the past decade. On the one hand they have produced some of the most original and funny comedic films for years like Superbad, Knocked Up and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy but then they have also fostered the misbegotten trash that was Year One, Drillbit Taylor and Get Him to the Greek. The hits just about outweigh the misses, thankfully then the latest film to hit the screens is a return to form. Today's flick of the day is Bridesmaids.

Bridesmaids

Written by and starring the always brilliant Kristen Wiig as Annie, a single woman on the wrong side of 30. As the film opens Annie is attempting to exit a one night stand with the truly horrid Ted, played by Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame by climbing over a fence. Of course, nothing goes to plan because nothing in this film ever does and its always hilarious. The plot is just something to hang gags around but such as it is involves Annie's best friend Lillian played by Maya Rudolph getting married. Once Annie meets her fellow bridesmaids, the gags start and just keep on coming. Its a great ensemble piece, with particularly fine turns from rich but vain Helen played with vigour by Rose Byrne and perfectly comic Megan played by a wonderful Melissa McCarthy who steals all the best lines. The film moves from one set piece to another at a steady pace and along the way Annie falls apart, hits rock bottom and meets somebody new, a highway patrol officer played by Chris O'Dowd, perhaps best known for The IT Crowd.

At just over two hours running time, it doesn't feel over long and like all the best weddings, it's a pleasant experience that doesn't live too long in the memory. It derives great humour from the awkwardness of personal embarassments. A particular highlight is the wedding dress fitting where all involved get food poisoning. It's that kind of film and while that may not be to everyone's taste, it certainly seems to go down well at the cineplex.

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: You're weird. 

Annie: I'm not weird. OK? 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: Yes, you are. 

Annie: No, I'm not! And you started it. 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: No, you started it! Did you forget to take your Zanax this morning? Annie: Oh, I feel bad for your parents.

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: I feel bad for your face. 

Annie: OK... well, call me when your boobs come in. 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: You call me when yours come in. 

Annie: What do you have, four boyfriends? 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: Exactly. 

Annie: OK... yeah, have fun having a baby at your prom. 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: You look like an old mop. 

Annie: You know, you're not as popular as you think you are. 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: I am very popular.

 Annie: [sticks tongue in cheek and mimics fellatio] Oh, I'm sure you are... very... popular. 

13-Year-Old Girl in Jewelry Store: Well, you're an old, single loser who's never going to have any friends.

Annie: You're a little cunt!

Perhaps the best humour is derived from little throw away exchanges and like all Apatow films marries heartfelt sentiment with raunchy comedy and no punches are pulled.

All in all, an enjoyable way to while away a couple of hours and laugh heartily and indeed for 10 quid, who could ask more? Kristen Wiig has a bright future ahead of her I'm sure.

Flick of The Day: Ghost Town

It would be fair to say that the romantic comedy has a bad reputation, much of it rightly earned. It is often the victim of lazy filmmaking, of big name actors phoning in a performance and of studios eager for a money spinner. However it is a genre with a fine history stretching back to the dawn of cinema. From the timeless It Happened One Night to Billy Wilder's Sabrina and Woody Allen's Annie Hall, it has always been a genre rich in talent and it is only recently that it has become a watch word for mediocrity. Today's flick of the day, Ghost Town, is the exception that proves the rule.

Ghost Town

Ricky Gervais, one of the latest in a grand history of British comedians to seek his fortune on the big screen makes a very fine debut in his first Hollywood role as Bertram Pincus, a dentist with a loathing for his fellow man. He is uniformly nasty to all who have the misfortune to cross his path. Gervais plays an insufferable prick to a tee. While in hospital for a routine operation, Bertram dies (briefly) on the operating table, and when he gets home he realizes that something is amiss. People follow him everywhere, asking him for help with their problems. It soon becomes apparent that Bertram can see and communicate with the dead and he is none too pleased.  Bertram thankfully has the recently deceased Greg Kinnear on hand to guide him through the spirit world. Kinnear excels as a womanising cad, who feels he has unfinished business. He convinces Pincus to intercede with his grieving wife, the lovely Tea Leoni, and break up her relationship with her new beau, ostensibly because Kinnear believes him to be a gold digger. Of course this is just a way for him to stay involved in his widow's life. Ultimately, Pincus has to find redemption and come to the realisation that life is their to be led not stored up.

What separates this film from the chaff, apart from the fine performances of the leads is the heart at the centre of this story and the fact that it is told with more then a degree of soul. It gets to the heart of the matter and is far more substantial a story then it seems at first. In any one else's hands, the role of Bertram Pincus would be an easy hate figure, but Gervais is a fine talent and he creates a sympathetic figure. It becomes obvious as the film goes one that Bertram is not alone by choice and that his hatred of the world as he holes up in his New York apartment stems from loss. His heart has been hardened and the film is as much about his opening up as anything else.

A simple and familiar tale then, told with panache and well acted characters. There is a lot to like here and I am sure anyone who sees it will leave the cinema feeling better, if only a little. There are some great funny lines in the film and Gervais and his fellow cast exploit them for all their worth.

Bertram Pincus: Dr. Prashar - you're from a... scary country, right? 

[pause] 

Dr. Prashar: I'm from India... 

Bertram Pincus: But, you're not... Christian, like us? 

[pause] 

Dr. Prashar: I'm a Hindu... 

Bertram Pincus: Yeah. So, um, how would you extract information from a hostile? 

Dr. Prashar: Well... as a... Hindu person... I would just... ask him... politely..

A very fine film from director David Koepp with some great performances and as I said a great deal of heart which helps it to rise above so many so-so romantic comedies. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: Hannah and Her Sisters

Another day, another Woody Allen movie. Last week we looked at Allen's masterpiece Manhattan, his last film of the 1970's. A decade which defined his career and his work in the 1980's was much more sombre in tone and influenced by European directors like Ingmar Bergman. This is not to say that the work was any less entertaining or well made. Some highlights of this period include Radio Days and today's film Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters is concerned with the lives and loves of a set of New York bohemians and artistics. The film opens with a Thanksgiving dinner where we are introduced to the main characters. Hannah, ably played by Mia Farrow is an actress, her husband Elliott, in an Oscar winning performance by Michael Caine, lusts after her sister Lee, played by Barbara Hershey who is living with arrogant artist Max Von Sydow. Allen himself appears as a neurotic (Can he play otherwise?) television producer who spends the film convinced he is going to die and ends up dating Hannah's other sister, the eminently irritating Holly, another actress.

The sisters meet on a weekly basis to discuss the week's events, what is most interesting is what they don't tell each other. At various points in the film, they each say how close they are to each other but then lie or misrepresent their lives to each other. The film takes place over the course of three Thanksgiving parties. At the first, all are contented. The second is a time of unhappiness and the third and final party takes place after everything has been resolved. 

The film still has that trademark Woody Allen dialogue and it still sparkles as much as ever but this is perhaps his most complex and rewarding film. There is a great depth to the drama and the relationships of the characters. Indeed, the scope of the film and its tale is almost novelistic. There is a considerable story arc here and as a viewer, there is much to enjoy.

[after learning Mickey is infertile] 

Hannah: Could you have ruined yourself somehow? 

Mickey: How could I ruin myself? 

Hannah: I don't know. Excessive masturbation? 

Mickey: You gonna start knockin' my hobbies?

While none of the characters are particularly endearing and indeed some of them at times grate, they are always compelling. Michael Caine deserves kudos for playing against type as a self centred egotist.

What if there is no God and you only go around once and that's it. Well, ya know, don't you wanna be part of the experience? You know, what the hell it's not all a drag. And I'm thinking to myself, Jeez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And after who knows, I mean maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

Another fine piece of film-making from Allen, well worth your time and putting the effort in for there is much to enjoy in this character study. It is so much more then a comedy.