BEFORE: I'm skipping over "New York Stories" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors", because I've seen both of those. This one feels vaguely familiar, but then again, I'm not sure. And when I'm not sure, I have to watch it to be sure. As a result, both Mia Farrow AND Blythe Danner carry over from "Another Woman".
NOW I am halfway through the Woody Allen chain. 17 films down and 17 to go.
THE PLOT: A spoiled Manhattan housewife re-evaluates her life after visiting a Chinatown healer.
AFTER: Woody's out to confound me once again, in a method similar to "The Purple Rose of Cairo". In that film, the impossible was seen to happen as a character walked out of a movie screen - tonight the impossible happens again, as a woman turns invisible, and speaks to the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. While it is possible that she is imagining these things taking place, at some point other characters react to her invisibility, so we are forced to regard this as a real event. (as real as anything else in the film, that is...)
The catalyst for the impossible occurences this time are herbal potions given to our housewife heroine by a Chinese doctor. The potions change over the course of her treatment, presumably as she gets more in touch with her feelings and what she wants out of life, the doctor changes his herbal prescriptions.
The doctor tells her that her pain is not in her back, it's in her head and in her heart. Having recently had feelings for a single father/saxophone player she met while picking her daughter up at school, she's created an internal conflict between her newfound attraction and her 16-year marriage. She clearly wants to have an affair, but doesn't consider herself the type of person who would do such a thing. This really leaves her only two choices: call off the new relationship, or become the type of person who would have an affair.
Some of this reminds me of what Kurt Vonnegut used to say in his books, about how we're all just walking skin-bags full of chemicals. If this is the case, than anything we eat or drink or smoke introduces new chemicals into the mix, so we are what we eat, but we're also what we breathe. If you change your diet, you're not just changing your fuel supply, you're becoming a different person. So this film works in that regard - thanks to some herbal potions (and one late-night session of smoking pot - or is it opium? - in the doctor's office), Alice is able to change her chemical composition, and eventually her lifestyle.
The Chinese doctor here wouldn't credit the herbs for her change, of course - he'd merely say that they're helping her get more information, and get in touch with her own feelings so that she can make the right decision for her. Same difference, I say.
What I have issue with, though, is the portrayal of a certain type of Manhattan housewife - the kind that lives on the Upper East Side, stays home to raise her kids but wishes she were working, has a full social calendar but still feels bored with her own life, who seems to be on top of things, but relies on help from a nanny and/or cook. So essentially, what does she really do all day, besides shop, throw parties and spend a couple hours with her kids?
My issue is not whether such women exist - I'm sure they do - but rather it's about whether one of them would say things like "I'm bored with getting pedicures and going to parties." And whether one of them would secretly yearn to throw her lifestyle away and go work with Mother Teresa, ministering to the poor people of Calcutta. This film would have you believe that the opposite lifestyle to living in an uptown paradise would be to live downtown, do all the housework yourself (shudder) and volunteer at a soup kitchen. That's it, those are the two extremes, and there's no in-between. Which seems a little ridiculous, or overly simplistic.
Also starring William Hurt (last seen in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"), Joe Mantegna (last seen in "Up Close & Personal"), Keye Luke, Alec Baldwin (last heard in "Rise of the Guardians"), Judy Davis (last seen in "Naked Lunch"), with cameos from Cybill Shepherd (last seen in "The Muse"), Bob Balaban (last seen in "Recount"), Bernadette Peters (last seen in "Pennies For Heaven"), June Squibb, Gwen Verdon, James Toback, Holland Taylor (last seen in "Happy Accidents"), Julie Kavner (last heard in "The Simpsons Movie"), Elle Macpherson.
RATING: 5 out of 10 cups of eggnog
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