via IMDB
Oh yeah, this is a hot, hot couple. Seriously, if you didn't know them from Adam, wouldn't you think it's a brother and sister at the movies?
I wasn't expecting to be snarky about Crimes and Misdemeanors, but it might actually be appropriate. After all, this is a movie where style beats substance, there's no God and everything from inane but praised TV to allowing the murder of a clearly disturbed woman can be rationalized.
Written and directed by Woody Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors features a considerably more serious approach to topics he'd tackled before. There's relationships with and without personal connection, the cost of achievement for haves and have-nots and everybody's favorite, whether or not one can find meaning in a seemingly meaningless world. According to legend, this movie was meant as a response to Hannah and Her Sisters, but it feels more like Woody's telling roughly the same story he had for more than 20 years. Then again ...
"All I know is after two years of shameful deceit, where I lead this double life, I awakened as if from a dream and realize what I'd been losing."
"It's called wisdom. It comes to some, suddenly. We realize the difference between what's real and deep and lasting versus the superficial payoff of the moment."
"You know, I kidded myself about loving her; but, deep down I knew; knowing I needed her selfishly, for pleasure, for adventure, for lust."
Crimes: Dolores (Anjelica Huston) is the mistress of ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau). She wants to reveal the affair to his wife, Miriam (Claire Bloom) and also knows he committed embezzlement. Unable to get Dolores out of his life and refusing to follow the honesty is best advice from Ben (Sam Waterston), a friend and patient who's also a rabbi, Judah allows his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach) to arrange a successful hit on Dolores.
Misdemeanors: Ben is brother to Lester (Alan Alda), a highly successful TV producer, and Wendy (Joanna Gleason), who's married to unsuccessful documentary filmmaker Cliff (Allen). Cliff's jealousy goes from professional to personal when it becomes apparent that he and Lester are both attracted to Halley (Mia Farrow). The love triangle is taking place against the production of a public television documentary that Cliff is reluctantly directing.
"They like a little variety. After all, he is an American phenomenon."
"Yeah, but so is acid rain."
While ambitious, Crimes and Misdemeanors isn't as focused as I remembered. Allen seems to written a good chunk of the ensemble at arm's length. Ben has no depth other than he's decent and everyone likes him. Miriam has no depth other than Judah apparently doesn't want to hurt her (it could be argued that he merely doesn't want to upset the status quo but doesn't have the guts to admit it). Wendy has no depth other than she's proud of Lester and has stopped being intimate with Cliff. Jenny (Jenny Nichols), Cliff's niece, appears to act as his conscience. That's a better role than the one played by her mother, Barbara (Caroline Aaron), who reminds Cliff of how mysterious human sexuality is.
During this latest viewing, the crimes portion impressed me more than the misdemeanors portion did. Although a lot of time is devoted to Judah coping with his moral failure, including hallucinating his family celebrating the Seder at some time post-WWII ("If necessary, I will always choose God over truth."), I was surprised at how non-plodding these sequences were. The crimes story also has a genuine, albeit unexpected, payoff.
The misdemeanors story, alas, has an air of been there, done that. This last viewing helped me realize Woody Allen and Mia Farrow only had sporadic chemistry. I think they were better playing characters with an edge or distance, as in Hannah or Broadway Danny Rose (I still need to see Husbands and Wives). Maybe if things had been a bit cleaner, like if we actually got to see Lester seducing Halley. Anyway, there's a punchline here, too, but it's been told before, and better.
"We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But! We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are in fact the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying, and even to find joy from simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."
In spite of my attitude, that monologue and the montage of clips from the two stories it played over made me cry the first time I saw Crimes and Misdemeanors. And both speech and film are still damn fine examples of writing.
Recommended with reservations.
Thoughts:
-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $18.3 million on a $19 million budget, this opened at No. 10 and came in at No. 61 for 1989. It still apparently grossed more than Radio Days, September and Another Woman combined.
-- Awards Watch: Allen (for his screenplay and direction) and Landau were Oscar nominated. The movie also picked up a lone Golden Globe nod for Best Motion Picture -- Drama. Landau and Alda were the most-commonly nominated actors, with Landau being recognized without wins by the Oscars, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Alda being recognized without a win by the BAFTAs and with wins by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle. Other nominations without wins included the BAFTAs recognizing Huston and Allen's writing and direction, plus Allen's recognition by the American Comedy Awards, the Directors Guild of America and the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.
-- Critic's Corner: "Who else but Woody Allen could make a movie in which virtue is punished, evildoing is rewarded and there is a lot of laughter -- even subversive laughter at the most shocking times?" Roger Ebert asked. "Never before has he made the leap (from the specific to the general) with more self-assurance," Vincent Canby wrote. "He hits the bull's-eye again."
-- I'm assuming Roger's alluding to the story of Barbara's unusual sexual assault. The man she met through the personals (Kenny Vance) chose their third or fourth date to, without Barbara's consent, introduce bondage and scat into the bedroom. I actually got my biggest laugh from something almost as cruel, the elderly wedding guest dancing up a storm before appearing to throw out his sciatica.
-- Hey, it's ...!: Daryl Hannah (as Lisa, the actress in Lester's new sitcom), Frances Conroy (as the woman who owns Judah's boyhood home) and Nora Ephron, Robin Bartlett and Mercedes Ruehl as wedding guests.
-- Hey, it's the Late '80s!: Marquees for Mondo New York and Buster, gas costing $1.03 a gallon and Lester being genuinely inspired by Trump. "A wealthy builder always trying to realize grandiose dreams ..."
-- "Idea for farce: A poor loser agrees to do the story of a great man's life and in the process comes to learn deep values." I'm of two minds regarding the portrayal of Lester. The character is written and acted just right, but I can't quite buy that an active TV producer would be practically deified in 1989. Not unless he was a star himself (like Bill Cosby) or produced dramas (like Steven Bochco). It's a little more believable if Lester had his hands in film production (like James L. Brooks) or was significantly older and/or appearing to be above the fray (like how Norman Lear, Carl Reiner and to a lesser extent, Lorne Michaels are today). I guess Larry Gelbart, the character's supposed inspiration, slightly fit the above the fray criteria, as he was more concerned with movies and theater in the 1980s. Back to Lear for a moment ... Lester's sitcom about a couple with opposite political views bears a passing resemblance to the short-lived All's Fair. In 1989, if the show wasn't watered down, it'd realistically get a ":30" timeslot, a couple Emmy nominations and not much of an audience.
-- "Show business is, is dog-eat-dog. It's worse than dog-eat-dog. It's dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-phone-calls."
-- Next: Henry V. On deck: My Left Foot.
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