Another Woman

I just watched this last night, and I've been thinking about it all day. What an amazing film! So poignant, so subtle. A woman re-evaluates her life and begins to lament the choices she made years ago. Such a simple premise, such immense possibilities.

This film demands a lot of its audience. There is no humor, no action, and very little plot. Most people won't be into this at all, I imagine, which is a shame. This film offers a really wonderful perspective on a subject that is so very rarely addressed in films today: aging. This film is about a woman taking stock of her life at the age of fifty. She looks back, she sees the choices she made and how they turned out. She sees the compromises she made to get where she is today (very successful, head of a philosophy department, about to write another book), and she begins to appreciate, for the first time, what those compromises cost.

This is, in my opinion, the central tragedy of human existence. You only get one shot at life, and no one ever tells you how to manage it. So, you make mistakes, and one day, when you're fifty, you've finally learned enough to start making the right choices. But, by that time, is it too late? This film doesn't answer that question, at least not for its central character. But it does offer hope.

The film is propelled by several dynamite performances. But, even in such a crowded field of great performances, it is not difficult to pick out Gena Rowlands, who gives an unforgettably nuanced performance as Marion, the film's central character.

You may notice that this film is propelled by a number of coincidences. Every chance encounter, however, has an eerie relevance to Marion's soul-searching. It may look contrived, but it isn't. These aren't coincidences at all. The pregnant woman, played by Mia Farrow, is instrumental in setting up each of these 'coincidences', and that character's name is Hope. I was half-expecting a "Fight Club" revelation at the end, but it never came, which is good. This film could stand both ways, and it's better for the director to leave the audience to consider the relationship between Hope and Marion on their own. Like I said, I've been thinking about it all day.

If there is a moral to Woody Allen's ANOTHER WOMAN, it is that we should live our lives with passion, spontaneity and optimism. Ironically, these are the very elements that are noticeable missing from the film. ANOTHER WOMAN seems to be selling products it doesn't have in stock, let alone on display.

ANOTHER WOMAN is an immaculate movie; sensitively acted, concisely written and lovingly filmed. But like so many of Allen's "serious" films, it is cold and strangely impersonal. It is Woody standing back and looking at someone else's life, composing a precise picture, but with a hands-off, leave-no-fingerprints approach. It is one of those films that is so easy to admire, but very difficult to embrace. It desperately wants to touch you, but refuses to come within touching distance. The film's central character is described thus: "She's just a little judgmental. You know, she sorta stands above people and evaluates them." That is how Allen approaches his characters here, like they're specimens.

There is, of course, two Woody Allens: the comedy genius and the always aspiring dramatist. Most of his comedies are pretty good, but the best are those that let the serious Woody sneak into the film and give the material backbone, as in ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, STARDUST MEMORIES and DECONSTRUCTING HARRY. He allows the serious Woody to make cameo appearances in his comedies, but when he sets his sites on meaningful drama, the funny Woody is barred from the set. It is as though Allen is afraid that so much as a smile will break the mood and make people forget just how serious his intentions are. He so easily mocks intellectual thought in his comedies, that he seems to have no faith in his ability to "be serious" and mean it. As such his serious comedies are alive and filled with insight, while his serious dramas are filled with pretense. How seriously can one take a line like "I shouldn't have seduced you. Intellectually, that is."? I mean, who the heck talks like that? In his comedies, such dialogue shows how pretentious the characters are; in his dramas, it seems meant to show just how sincere the characters are.

And words are an important element of ANOTHER WOMAN. Allen's dialogue and narration is eloquent and sophisticated, but stiff and formal. Even when discussing their deepest feelings or expressing anger or reliving joyous moments in their lives, all the characters speak as though they are discussing the terms of their life insurance policies. There is a solemn emptiness to the tone of the film; even at the end, when Marion tries to make amends for past failings, she seems to be negotiating a contract, not saying "Let's start again." Such pompous droning seems designed to reflect the tone of the characters' lives; but the end result is monotonous and deadening, rather than being poetic and compelling.

The film does have a clever conceit: the always marvelous Gena Rowlands plays Marion Post, a professor of philosophy, who sublets an apartment to serve as an office where she can write her latest book. A quirk in the ventilation system allows her to inadvertently eavesdrop on the conversations going on next door. The next apartment is the office of a psychiatrist, who counts among his patients a young pregnant woman, played by Mia Farrow. The young woman discusses at length her sorrowful life and suicidal impulses. Because she identifies with the younger woman's feelings of loneliness and alienation, Marion becomes obsessed with eavesdropping on the sessions and uses the situation as a springboard for reevaluating her own life.

It is significant that just as Allen tells the story from a sterile distance, Marion reviews her life only indirectly, though voice-overs, flashbacks, dreams and even symbolic stage productions. Even her psychoanalysis is conducted through a surrogate, Farrow's character, who is rather obviously named Hope. Much of the interaction with other characters occurs in Marion's mind. And rather predictably, Marion's journey of self discovery is, well, rather predictable. She discovers -- as protagonists in this sort of film always discover -- that her successful career and her well-ordered life are a facade hiding her empty relationships and assorted personal failures. Her life of satisfied accomplishment is meaningless and the trust, love and respect she believes she shares with others are delusions. It's like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE in reverse: Just as the angel Clarence acts as George Bailey's conscience to show him how valuable his life has been, Hope acts as Marion's conscience to reveal how empty her life as become.

ANOTHER WOMAN has a counterpart in Allen's 2003 film, ANYTHING ELSE; another film with an obvious doppelganger. The former is about a woman who encounters her younger alter ego and reevaluates her past choices, while the latter is about a young man whose encounters with his older alter ego (played by Woody Allen) effects the choices that will shape his future. The same basic story is approached from opposite directions.

It's dangerous to speculate, but it seems that Allen made ANOTHER WOMAN during a time in his life when he was hugely admired for his accomplishments and he was deeply involved in a relationship with Mia Farrow and her extended family. Certainly Farrow's playing a pregnant woman and Marion's second thoughts over placing career over personal relationships seem to suggest a parallel. By contrast, ANYTHING ELSE, made a decade and a half later, finds Allen's character playing a mentor at a time when he is apparently happily married to a much younger woman, and where his status as a filmmaker is more iconic than in vogue. As such, his surrogate changes from being the central figure to the sadder but wiser voice of experience.

Both films are steeped in regret, but make an effort to end in an upbeat fashion. But while ANOTHER WOMAN is an accomplished, polished work striving for a cool perfection, it is not persuasive in its attempt to inspire us with optimism. ANYTHING ELSE is rambling and unfocused and, well, sloppy, but its optimism is honest and funny. ANOTHER WOMAN is about getting another chance, but there is no reason to believe that anything will really change in Marion's tight, introspective little life.

This is a wonderful movie but not an easy one. It mixes the present with the past and dreams with real life. You will need to see it three or four times at least to get the best out of it but it's well worth doing. Every performance is spot on, every scene has a purpose, there is no padding here. It comes as a shock to Gena Rowlands character that she is not what she thought she was, that people do not view her in the way she thought they did.She takes a journey through her life to see what went wrong with the unwitting aid of a psychiatrist and patient in the apartment next door. The film ends abruptly without a proper resolution just as life can and does. The final line of Gena Rowlands beautiful narration will haunt you. A masterpiece of writing and direction to say nothing of superb acting and masterful cinematography.

There was a certain period in Woody Allen's career when he was trying desperately to imitate Ingmar Bergman's work. It rarely worked, and often turned out disasters like the execrable September. Another Woman is a riff on Bergman's Wild Strawberries: a college professor, played by Gena Rowlands, is past fifty and looking back on and reliving key events in her life as her present life is falling apart. The film is quite stagy at times, just as it was in September, Allen's previous film. He seems to think that adds something, but it really doesn't. One other problem Another Woman has is a couple of very clunky scenes, and a few poor bit performers, which were much bigger problems in September, which was actually the last Allen film that I saw and the one that made me subconsciously avoid him for the past several months. Allen's script here is excellent. He has produced an excellent character study which is probably unsurpassed in all of his other films that I've seen. The lead actors are wonderful here, Rowlands, Ian Holms, Blythe Danner, Sandy Dennis, and Gene Hackman. Allen's use of piano music is beautifully touching. It all adds up to a very touching and sad little film. It might not be Woody's best film, but it ought to be better respected and known. 8/10.

This is by far my favorite Woody Allen straight drama (most of his other "serious" films, like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Husbands & Wives, have comedic moments). His third "heavy film" (after Interiors and September) is chamber drama, beautifully acted and directed. Most of the elements found in Allen's other post "Annie Hall" films are here (the upper crust Manhattan intellectuals, dysfunctional relationships), but what's missing are the laughs. The film is very serious stuff, involving repressed emotions and alienation. There is simply no place for Woody's usually nervous character in Another Woman. You can still tell that this is one of his films because of the characterizations. Gena Rowlands is in nearly every scene and is classy, as usual, and the rest of the ensemble cast is just as good. My favorites were Gene Hackman and Ian Holm. The title is fairly clever as well; it doesn't refer to what you might think.