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44 reviews in total

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26 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
moving, excellent, 31 August 2005

Author: Movie_Man 500 from La La Land

I'm probably in the minority here but i find this to be one of Allen's top ten masterpieces. Every scene works and the more you watch it, the more searing it becomes. No doubt you need to be in the right frame of mind to see it, but it's like a great night watching a play unfold. So many deep secrets, betrayals and unspoken feelings, finally, all coming to a head by the time the power comes back on after that thunderstorm. It feels way too real and may be why it makes most audience members uncomfortable. I liked this the first time I saw it and continue to hold it in high esteem years and almost 2 decades later. To preserve the great Elaine Stritch on film forever is enough to recommend it but the acting is painfully truthful to the point of awe. Woody's 3 dramas: this and Interiors and Another Woman form a great triangle. They should be looked at and admired now for the fine ensemble casting and the pinpoint writing. Whether they rip off Bergman or not, is rather pointless to argue. Each of them stand up as potent films on their own. Waterston and Wiest re-united on TV's Law And Order, and Stritch as well went on to win an Emmy on Law, so it shows how intuitive Allen was when it came to choosing great actors for his scripts. I found Farrow's character to be highly moving. Then again, I liked everything she and Allen did together. You became almost spoiled by the high quality. As a lifelong Allen viewer, I still think this is fine stuff and will stick by my high opinion every time I re-see it.

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20 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Unforgettable, 23 February 2005
Author: Richard Burin from advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com

Between his serio-comic reminiscence Radio Days and the searing adult drama Another Woman, Woody Allen made September, a reflective, introspective chamber-piece on his favourite themes of childhood, adultery, love and loss. One imagines that the chilly critical and public response will shift to one of admiration and wonder as the years shift, such is the haunting power of this masterpiece.

Mia Farrow plays Lane, an unsuccessful photographer recovering from a breakdown in her autumnal apartment, the golds and rusts of the season chiming with the forlorn tone of the story. She falls in love with a visiting writer (Waterston), who appears to be drifting away from her, since he is besotted with Lane's sister Stephanie (Wiest). Barely taking an interest is the sisters' self-absorbed mother (Stritch) and her insecure third husband (Warden). Denholm Elliot rounds out the principal cast as a kind family friend, his love for Lane unspoken.

There are many great moments in this complex, brilliant film, but two in particular remain long in the mind. First is the "love scene" between Waterston and Wiest. Wiest says - torn - that to begin an affair would be "impossible" and exits. Then, slowly, she turns and walks back into the room, shutting the door. Wiest has never been better than in this film, than in this moment. A startling, beautifully realised epiphany, boiled down to a look, a bow and a smile. The second great sequence comes with the shattering denouement, which I shan't spoil for you here.

Allen's straight dramas certainly aren't for all tastes, but for those who can take them the rewards are vast. There has never been a screenwriter with a better ear for dialogue and in his "serious" films, Allen creates fascinating, utterly believable characters. The performances are pitch-perfect throughout, with Wiest, Farrow and Stritch all on career-best form. As always Allen's use of lighting and music is spot-on; here he showcases Art Tatum and Bernie Leighton, providing an evocative soundtrack to an unforgettable film.

Simply brilliant.

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16 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Not as bad as most people pretend, 25 May 2003

Author: ugobo (oupsenaihay@hotmail.com) from Montreal

First i must say that i'm an inconditional Woody Allen fan so i can take a lot from him without judgement. I watch September for the first time yesterday and i must say that it was good. I've read many bad comments on that one throughout the years so i was ready for the end of the world! Having read Woody's comment on the film in the DVD booklet i was surprised to find out that Woody had intended September to be a filmed play. So with this in mind i was more opened to the "extremely hermetic" ambiance of the film. Ok,it is emotionly heavy at times in this who-love-who plot but it is rewarded with great performance from Diane Wiest and Mia Farrow. I would recommend this to anyone who want to see another side of Woody with an opened mind. I really enjoyed that one...

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11 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Not Allen's best, but not his worst either, 1 October 2001

Author: craigjclark from Haddonfield, NJ

Let's face it: It's hard to be entertained by a story where everybody's in love with someone who's in love with someone else. Chekhov can make it compelling (watch "Vanya on 42nd Street" for recent proof of this), but Allen obviously had other things in mind with this film. I guess it was his antidote to "Hannah and Her Sisters," where similar love triangles (and other polygons) played out, but the end result was much happier. Allen usually doesn't like to give us such neat endings, so a year later we get "September," in which little is resolved and most of the characters end up back where they started. It's a fascinating film in its own way, but it doesn't bear repeated viewings.

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13 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Hypnotic, 20 August 2003
Author: Edu-16 from New Zealand

Wasn't in the mood to watch a film last night, but couldnt remember seeing Denholm Elliot in a Woody Allen movie before, so realised this was one I hadnt seen before.

Can't say as I was 'entertained' - but I was gripped and rooted to the sofa for the duration, which could say something about my sofa of course, but was really down to this film. The dialogue and acting were both utterly convincing - and there were many moments of intense honesty. Just for once, relationships don't resolve, nor are we rescued from darkness by gratuitous humour. It's a stark, depressing beautifully acted piece of claustrophobic drama. More your Webern 'five pieces', rather than your Strauss, 'Der RosenKavalier'.

If nothing else - it's nice to be reminded that not all scripts are written by a gang of 12 year olds....

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10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Elaine Stritch Is Superb, 22 July 2005

Author: drednm

Sombre story from Woody Allen details (with much angst) a disastrous weekend in Vermont with 6 people seemingly all at loose ends. Mia Farrow "lost" her husband and has fallen for lugubrious writer Sam Waterston, but he's fallen for Dianne Wiest. A neighbor, Denholm Elliott, secretly loves Mia. Mia's mother and husband have also arrived (Elaine Stritch and Jack Warden). Story has echoes of Ibsen and Bergman. Waterson and Farrow are a bit hard to take, but the acting is solid all round. The Vermont house is a set on a sound stage but looks great. Wiest is always good, and Warden is good but has little to do. The intruders--a realtor and two clients--are annoying boors (played by Rosemary Murphy, Ira Wheeler, and Jane Cecil). Stritch steals the show as the one-time playgirl/actress with a Lana Turner past. Had this film been a hit, Stritch would have garnered an Oscar nomination. She's a total dynamo even if her character is unsympathetic. Maureen O'Sullivan began shooting as the mother but was replaced by Stritch. Not for all tastes, not as good as "Interiors," but even mediocre Woody Allen is better than most.

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8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
A somber meditation, 14 February 2004

Author: Cameron (inthreefour@aol.com) from Northern California

Basically, if you liked "Interiors" you will probably also enjoy this moody piece which features some fine performances and a lot of angst-filled speeches. On the other hand, if you didn't like "Interiors" you probably won't like this film either. Although it isn't as good as Allen's more famous melodrama, it comes close to being of equal quality, in terms of the acting; the script, however, leaves something to be desired. I'd recommend it if someone asked me, but I wouldn't go out of my way to try to get people to see it.

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9 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Chekhov without the jokes, 30 August 2001

Author: Gyran from Birmingham, England

Denholm Elliott has the hots for Mia Farrow, who has the hots for Sam Waterston, who has the hots for Dianne Wiest. Mia's ex-film-star mother and her physicist husband descend on them, insult everyone and then go away again. All this is set in a house in New England during a storm and power-cut.

Some critics see this as Allen in Bergman mode again but to me its claustrophobic country-house atmosphere is more reminiscent of Chekhov – with one important exception: Chekhov has jokes. This is tedious stuff. No wonder Soon-Yi (in Wild Man Blues) says that she walked out of it.

Fact and fiction got confused in my mind when Mia Farrow's character started talking about shooting her mother's gangster lover when she was a teenager. This may be an allusion to the real-life shooting of Johnny Stompanato by Lana Turner's daughter. Elaine Strich, playing the mother, is reminiscent of Farrow's real mother Maureen O'Sullivan in Hannah And Her Sisters.

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10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Autumn Sonata reloaded, 11 July 2007

Author: stalker vogler from Xanadu

Usually when Woody borrows an idea from Bergman he makes that idea his own, and turns it into something that's clever yet funny and entertaining. It is definitely not the case here. This looks like a Woody Allen parody,made by an unskilled director, totally unrealistic since X loves Y who loves Z who loves A and who in turn loves X to make the circle complete. We have a bunch of clichés thrown in among which the poor little daughter who lived her whole life in the mother's shadow was already brilliantly analyzed on screen by Bergman's Autumn Sonata (with Ingrid Bergman not this crazy old hag with artistic claims). The actors are for the most part quite OK, but what's the use of that? This is a gimmick meant for the soap opera admirers. The "postmodern", intertextual stuff that works incredibly well in movies such as Love and Death, Deconstructing Harry, Hannah and her Sisters etc. completely fails here making the characters appear like frustrated morons too intelligent to be clever. In the end nothing happens, we find ourselves after an hour and a half of murky bore at an abrupt end that took us nowhere. The music was the only thing that saved this movie from a total disaster, Art Tatum works good anywhere, but again, what's the use?... Boring cinematography, all dark and uninspired, too claustrophobic and I really don't care it's what they intended. Check Nykvist's cinematography in the aforementioned Autumn Sonata, or the same Nykvist in Woody's Crimes and Misdemenaors.

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8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
What about the music?, 21 April 2002

Author: dralan from toronto canada

I enjoyed the film. As one previous comment mentions, it is reminiscent of Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Probably intentional on Allen's part, and his homage to Bergman. The characters are played over the top, as in any good melodrama, and like most Allen characters in all his films. The film is presented as a stage play being filmed.

I am surprised that none of the previous comments mention the wonderful music of Art Tatum, Ben Webster et al. For Allen I suspect that the music is a central character of the film, and the film is an opportunity for Allen to present this music to his filmgoing audience.

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