HANNAH AND HER SISTERSBlu-ray Review
(PG-13)
MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: *1/2 (out of 5)
BY KEVIN CARR
I’ve never really been much of a Woody Allen fan. Sure, I can appreciate some of his classics like “Annie Hall,” and his more recent endeavors like “Match Point” are quite good. However, he isn’t a pillar in my filmmaking tastes.
This always puts me in an odd spot when talking to other lovers of film. I get strange looks of confusion when I pooh-pooh his work and shrug him off. So many people out there think he’s an absolute genius, while I think he’s just okay.
This happened notably to me twice regarding “Hannah and Her Sisters.” When I tweeted out that I didn’t particularly like the film (mainly because I didn’t like the characters), I was hit up with a bunch of incredulous @replies. Boy, I had struck a nerve… and I didn’t even say I hated it. I just said it was one of his lesser works.
Similarly, as I write this review at a Panera Bread, I had a gentleman come up to me and strike up a conversation with me about the Blu-ray. He considers it Allen’s masterpiece. I politely smiled and directed the conversation in another direction.
Whether you love it (which seems to be everyone else in film criticism) or find yourself a bit bored with it (like me), “Hannah and Her Sister” it at the very least a conversation starter.
The story follows several relationships, all centered around Hannah (Mia Farrow). She embarks on an affair with her sister’s husband (Michael Caine) while her other sister (Diane Wiest) struggles with finding love and a career. As the relationships disintegrate, we learn more about the characters’ personal pain and dysfunction.
“Hannah and Her Sisters” represents a specifically more dramatic work than Allen’s earlier New York films like “Annie Hall” and “Manhatten.” He still takes a role to keep things light at times, but he’s really set in the wings for most of the production.
While realistically written for the characters he develops and very well acted by a strong ensemble cast, my biggest problem is that I never could get past my distaste for the actual people populating the film. This, of course, begs the question of whether you need to like the characters in a movie to like the movie, a debate I engaged in after panning movies like “Young Adult.” In my experience, there has to be something personally likeable about a film’s characters in order for me to enjoy it.
It’s not that the characters in “Hannah and Her Sisters” are unrealistic or poorly written. I just didn’t like spending two hours with them. Add to this the oddly creepy real-life angle of Allen writing a story of infidelity involving then-wife Mia Farrow, and a weird doting monologue he gives himself at the end of the film, and the movie just left a bad taste in my mouth.
But then again, remember that I’m in the minority on this opinion.
Like a chunk of the library releases from MGM and Fox, the “Hannah and Her Sisters” Blu-ray comes with pretty much no special features. The theatrical trailer is included, but nothing else. This makes the grab for Blu-ray less of a necessity and more for the fans of the film itself (of which it does have many, I’ll admit). Still, with Woody Allen being known for his more muted level of filmmaking, this isn’t an eye-popping movie to start with. Still, if you like this flick and you haven’t got your hands on a DVD of it, it’s worth checking out.
Hannah gets played by Mia Farrow, not Barbara Hershey.
Whoops. Thanks for the catch. Fixed now.
Your review is well written: it’s hard to write about complicated thoughts & feelings without creating a muddle. You’ve kept everything clear.
On the issue of a main character’s like-ability being necessary to the like-ability of the narrative, well, there again you’ve picked another complicated subject, and that’s a good thing because, oftentimes, complication accompanies interest. As an actor I’m usually gravitating towards characters with deep shading darkening their moral profiles. This is so because I want the challenge of making a deeply flawed human being sympathetic. With few exceptions, I find goody-goody characters to be crashing bores.
I think the crux of the question of character like-ability is not whether or not the character is likeable, but whether or not the character is interesting. We’ve all given our close attention to characters we love to hate, right? Why? Because the rat-bastard is interesting, that’s why.
In the shopping scene between Hannah & sister Holly, Hannah becomes interesting as this warm, nurturing mama who makes one cutting remark after another to a very vulnerable Holly, who needs some of that nurturing! And most of the time, while she’s crushing Holly’s hopes, Hannah seems oblivious to the barbaric rudeness of her comments. How do you deal with a sweetypie who keeps kicking you in the groin? Who knows? That’s one argument as to why this sometimes maddening woman is worth spending time with. She’s an interesting case of twisted psychology.
Finally, I can make this argument: art can be defined as news that stays news, even after centuries. Now, you know what they say about the news, “If it bleeds it leads.”