crystal075-705-904023
Nothing could keep me watching this film after the first hour. Dialogue was putting me to sleep, and not just the burdensomeness that made me want to slink down and curl my shoulders forward, but the tone. And the sets. And the clothes. Bland and banal.This film felt like a wanna be Graduate or Last Tango in Paris. Although I do not expect the sensationalism of these films, I did hoped something would grab me, rather than making me exhausted because watching felt like work.
grantss
The story of a very dysfunctional family and what happens when the parents divorce. Eve (Geraldine Page) and Arthur (EG Marshall) are a 60-something couple, recently separated. They have three adult daughters - Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) and Flyn (Kristin Griffith). Renata is a poet and is married to Frederick (Richard Jordan). Joey is (reluctantly) in advertising and is married to Mike (Sam Waterston). Joey is a film and TV actress. Eve is an incredibly negative woman and this has had a toxic effect on her children. This results in stifling, unsupportive relationships and joyless lives.Woody Allen at his most introspective and negative. A very well made film, with Allen demonstrating his prowess behind the camera to full effect. Some great camera angles, fixed angle shots and lingering shots. Great performances too from all concerned. However, for the first 90% of the movie there is hardly a cheerful moment (this is clearly not one of the "funny ones"). Negativity is piled upon negativity. This is largely led by the mother, Eve, who is one of the most irritating, depressing characters in all of cinema. Equally depressing is how this has rubbed off on her children.The pain of watching the first 90% does pay off in the end, as the final few scenes tie the movie together and provide the closure and relief. The contrast is stark, like a release valve being opened, and make the movie worth watching.It is really a matter of gritting your teeth and getting through the first 90%...
Antonia Tejeda Barros
"You only live once, and once is enough if you play your cards right" (Pearl / Maureen Stapleton)Interiors was Woody Allen's first drama. The film is a masterpiece and obviously was influenced and inspired by Bergman's films. It got 5 Oscar nominations and 4 Golden Globe nominations.Woody Allen wrote Eve's role with Ingrid Bergman in mind. Woody Allen offered the role to Ingrid but she had to decline it because she was already committed to shoot Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) with Ingmar Bergman.There is no music in the film (with the exception of the two pieces played in the scene where everybody but Joey and Renata are dancing and the tacky Pearl breaks the vase).The best: Geraldine Page and Maureen Stapleton.The worst: Renata's weird and "fake" motherhood. We see her daughter only in two moments and only for a second.
Hitchcoc
Filled with angst and written seriously, I had to put aside my anticipation that at some point a Woody Allen moment would move in. This is an homage to Bergman. The characters are serious in their presences. They are consumed by guilt as they watch their parents move on with their lives. When we see Geraldine Page, suffering, we know why things are as they are. The girls have tried to make their lives go and have run into the depth of despair. At times it seems so maudlin and I can muster no sympathy for their pathetic beings. Throw in the flamboyant Jean Stapleton who adds color to this dirge and by contrast everyone is lost. E. G. Marshall is to be complimented for getting out of this black hole. Still, there is some growth. This sort of set the stage for future "serious" movies, but it is drained of charm, as Allen would use these themes later in better movies. I personally believe had this not been made by Wood Allen, it would have been treated with much less respect by the critics as pretty ordinary and overly artsy.
AD
