HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

LOOK, I’M WOODY. HOWDY, HOWDY, HOWDY.

Starring a Wide Variety of 1980s Allen Regulars and Michael Caine

Trailer

Y

  He can write for women, and that’s a rarity. Every one of the sisters here is developed into a character with wants, needs, loves and motivations, a plentiful inner-life and enough witticisms on the surface to fit with Allen’s other work. It’s the men here that are at odds with a great film. Most of the conversation scenes take place in a kitchen between two women with problems that swirl around in their heads, but they’re utterly riveting and attention grabbing, skirting a line between realism and artifice that’s masterful in its handling. But then, over the top, is a jerk-about comedy concerning Woody getting a brain tumour and worrying about the universe yet again. It’s funny. His act is usually funny, but here it’s out of place, and every time he appears again to whinge at a doctor and rant at the Old Testament you wish he’d get back to his nuanced and beautiful portrayal of women on the edge. It’s jarring, slamming his two functions together and skipping them from scene to scene. And then there’s Michael Caine, a man who long ago became a caricature of himself in the Ben Kingsley/Anthony Hopkins model, an ‘actor’ who’s content to only ever turn up and ‘be himself’, like a lonely kid on his first day of school. Thankfully, this is before his last great performance (this, if you’re interested), so he’s still putting some effort in and it’s… fucked up. He’s such a strange character, such an odd, dithering mess of neuroses and self-obsession that he comes across as Woody’s sociopathic doppelganger, a man who wants to weasel his way to a full existence by stalking women through dilapidated bookshops and fucking their sisters. It’s an amazing turn, but one that’s so off-kilter in comparison to the expert naturalism of the three sisters that when you put it next to Woody and the suicidal German artist it unbalances the film, sending it into a flume of stylistic confusion. That the piece as a whole is good enough to escape this weirdness is a testament to the strength of it’s direction and the acting of the main actresses, each of whom create a likeable character with real flaws and endearing qualities that see them through the bizarre sabotage-performances of the men around them. Still, amazingly, one of his best.