SEPTEMBER (1987)

Following a failed suicide attempt, Mia Farrow is holed away at her family's country home in Vermont.  As the film begins she has been there for a few months and summer is drawing to a close.  She longs to return to NYC and restart her life...her life with an aspiring writer (Sam Waterson) who has been renting the guest house.  Early in the summer they had drawn close and even made love, but now Sam is more interested in Mia's married visiting friend Dianne Wiest.  Added to this triangle is a neighbor, Denholm Elliott, who is in love with Mia.  And added on to that is Mia's mother and stepfather (Elaine Stritch and Jack Warden) dropping by for a visit.  Mia has a very strained relationship with her mother.

SEPTEMBER is not a happy film.  Anybody looking to see a funny Woody Allen movie will be disappointed in that respect, but they will be treated to a wonderfully written story filled with very flawed and very human characters.  And with only six principal characters and one-hundred percent of the events happening within the confines of the house, SEPTEMBER is structured like a play.  It's not often that you see a film made this way and I thought it was wonderful.  The most impressive thing about SEPTEMBER though is Mia Farrow's performance.  Absolutely heartbreaking.

Overall, it's not as impressive as INTERIORS, but I think INTERIORS was going more for the Bergman vibe while SEPTEMBER was going for the Chekhov vibe.  Either way it's triumph of filmmaking.  Highly recommended.

INTERIORS (1978)

Three adult sisters are having trouble coping with the sudden separation of their parents. The split shouldn't have come as a surprise since the mother has ruled the family with an iron fist for a number of years, but it did comes as a surprise. To make matters worse the mother has a history of mental illness and now, in her denial, she's become suicidal. Added to this crisis is the personal life drama (husband/boyfriend, job, family history etc.) of each of the sisters.

With his previous film (ANNIE HALL) Allen proved that he was capable of more than just broad comedies by introducing a level of seriousness never seen before in his films, but with INTERIORS he takes it to the next level: the pacing is purposely slow; there's no music for nearly the entire film; the colors are all subdued and bleak; zero laughs; hardly any action beyond talking. INTERIORS is most decidedly not what audiences were expecting from the guy who brought them TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN and SLEEPER, but if they had an open mind about it they ended up being treated to one of the best films of the 1970's.

A number of critics simply dismiss INTERIORS as an "homage to Ingmar Bergman" (what's wrong with that?!), even so it's still a powerful and emotionally moving film that should not only be seen but studied...especially the script and the set decoration. I cannot recommend it enough.  It's a masterpiece.  I'm very surprised that Geraldine Page didn't win the Oscar for Best Actress.