Though not one of Woody Allen’s strongest films, it’s worth seeing this self-conscious, Ingmar Bergman-like melodrama for its impressive cast, including Gena Rowlands and Gene Hackman (who had never worked with Allen before).
Grade: B (*** out of *****)
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Rowlands plays an aging philosophy professor named Marion Post, who goes through a midlife crisis of sorts, which make her realize how dreary her emotional life has been.
Marion is married to Ken, a physician (British actor Ian Holm), and has a good relationship with her stepdaughter Laura (Martha Plimpton).
Marion, like most of Allen’s protags, has a seemingly comfortable upper-middle class life, revolving around her work and its solid status and stable marriage to a loving husband. At the same time, she avoids the company of her irritating brother (Yulin). But mostly her life is dominated by the anxiety and fear of losing her ailing and rapidly declining father (played by John Houseman).
Marion’s life changes, when she accidentally hears a therapy session with a psychiatric patient who’s pregnant (Mia Farrow). She becomes obsessed by the young woman, whose name is Hope, who reminds Marion of herself. Without giving it a special thought, she begins to follow her, motivated by a strange need to know all about her.
Life imitates art: This was the last part played by Oscar-winning actor and producer John Houseman, perhaps best known for his Oscar winning performance in The Paper Chase; David Ogden Stiers plays the father of Marion as a young girl.
In a typical Allen way, Marion embarks on a journey of self-scrutiny and analysis. She begins to dig deep into her inner self, revisiting her past, searching for answers to what went wrong.
Too bad that the narrative is so contrived and self-conscious, as the movie boasts the best actors working in the theater and cinema today, including (in addition to those already mentioned): Blythe Danner, Betty Buckley, and Sandy Dennis.
Inevitably, while you watch “Another Woman,” you flash back to the great roles Rowlands had played in her husband-director John Cassavetes films (“A Woman Under the Influence,” “Opening Night,” “Love Streams”), all emotionally disturbed (mentally ill?) women.
In that respect, Allen’s film offers exactly the opposite role, a rather cold, detached intellectual and complacent wife, who needs to wake up and listen more carefully to her heart.
Marion leaves Ken after catching him in an affair. She resolves to change her life, and takes steps to repair her relationship with others in her family. By the end, she reflects that, for the first time in years, she feels hopeful.
Intertextuality: Inspired by Ingmar Bergman
Another Woman borrows heavily from Ingmar Bergman, particularly Wild Strawberries, whose main character is an elderly professor who learns from a close relative that his family hates him. Allen also recreates some of Wild Strawberries‘s dream scenes, and puts Marion in similar situation as those aced by Isak Borg. The characters in bothmovies reexamine their life after friends and family accuse them of being cold, unfeeling, unsympathetic
The film relies on classical music (Claude Debussy’s orchestral arrangement of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”), as do Allen’s earlier and later films, such as Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Husbands and Wives.
Credits
Produced by Robert Greenhut
Directed and written by Woody Allen
Camera: Sven Nykvist
Editing; Susan E. Morse
Production design: Santo Loquasto
Costumes: Jeffrey Kurland
Cast:
Gena Rowlands, Ian Holm, Mia Farrow, Gene Hackman, Blythe Danner, Sandy Dennis, Martha Plimpton, Harris Yulin, David Ogden Stiers, John Houseman, Betty Buckley, Philip Bosco.
Running time: 83 Minutes
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