Item: Hannah and Her Sisters
Rating: 8
Author: JoBlo

Hannah and Her Sisters

August 14th 2001, 12:00am

	Review Date: Director: Woody Allen Writer: Woody Allen Producers: Robert Greenhut Actors: Woody Allen Mia Farrow Dianne Wiest

Review:

I love most of Woody Allen’s “adultery”-based movies including this one, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and HUSBANDS AND WIVES. Some of his best work, in my opinion.

The basic idea behind all of them is that people are confused about life, confused about love and confused about what the hell is ever gonna make them happy. So what do they do? Well, they fuck around, that’s what!

In this film, Michael Caine’s character is married to a lovely woman, only he doesn’t realize it and suddenly finds himself dicking his wife’s sister. Pretty gross, eh? Well, it would be were it not for the fact that this film is written exquisitely and taken to another level by all of the superb talent associated to the film.

But above all, this movie feels real, the people seem real and the situations all ring true. We’ve all gone through these feelings at one point or another (okay, I’m not talking about dicking your wife’s sister, but you get what I’m saying…) and could relate to any one of the many interesting characters in this movie.

The cool thing is that all three sisters in the picture have their own story and each one is interesting in itself. Woody, for once, actually takes the back seat in this one and lets most of his well-renowned cast take over. Caine more than proves that he deserved his Oscar for best supporting actor for this role and if you watch closely, you will even notice several early roles from actors who went on to bigger and better things including John Turturro, J.T. Walsh and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Allen is also at his strongest as a director with this picture, with plenty of succesful tricks including title cards, voice-overs, a span of over two years, some handheld stuff and a very solid sense of realism.

Anyway, I won’t babble on much longer here, but the bottom line with this picture is that it’s a solid adult drama with laughs and some emotion tossed in for kicks. They talk about sex, they commit affairs, they go out on dates and they live their lives…grab a drink and enjoy…