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Title: Deconstructing Harry (1997)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Judy Davis | ... | Lucy | |
| Julia Louis-Dreyfus | ... | Leslie | |
| Stephanie Roth Haberle | ... | Janet (as Stephanie Roth) | |
| Dan Frazer | ... | Janet's Dad | |
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Joel Leffert | ... | Norman |
| Lynn Cohen | ... | Janet's Mom | |
| Richard Benjamin | ... | Ken | |
| Joe Buck | ... | Yankee Announcer (voice) | |
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Jane Hoffman | ... | Grandma |
| Woody Allen | ... | Harry Block | |
| Tobey Maguire | ... | Harvey Stern | |
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Annette Arnold | ... | Rosalee |
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Frederick Rolf | ... | Harvey's Doctor |
| Elisabeth Kieselstein-Cord | ... | Rosalee's Sister | |
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Lortensia Hayes | ... | Jennifer |
Harry Block is a well-regarded novelist whose tendency to thinly-veil his own experiences in his work, as well as his un-apologetic attitude and his proclivity for pills and whores, has left him with three ex-wives that hate him. As he is about to be honored for his writing by the college that expelled him, he faces writer's block and the impending marriage of his latest flame to a writer friend. As scenes from his stories and novels pass and interact with him, Harry faces the people whose lives he has affected - wives, lovers, his son, his sister. Written by Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>
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Woody bares his soul--again--and if the introspective vision of the sad clown (growing old) isn't what you're expecting, the film is likely to be a disappointment. The film is funny, of course, and vulgar (as most Allen movies are), but it's also bitter and cynical, and rather sad.
The jerky jump-cuts might be a stylized editing cover-up for jumping from take to take to utilise the best performances of a pantheon of actors, or they might be planned...I don't know. I had to see a few of them before I settled into accepting them as "the style", but I decided they work in this film.
Other "user comments" complain about Woody and the sexy young women. That bothers me in some films, but not here. Here it's part of Harry's character--part of Woody's "character"--and is clearly part of his problem.
I think this is an honest film, a sad and revealing film about one of the most clever and creative writers in America. It's funny, it's witty, and it's also depressing. It has moments of pure, laugh-out-loud humour (eg. the elevator going down to the bottom floor of hell; Harry arriving at the honouring ceremony with a dead body, a prostitute, and his "kidnapped" son in the car), but underneath it's the story of a man who cannot function happily in real life, only in the fictions he creates. Although fantasy plays a major role in the story, the story is not a fantasy. The parallels between Allen himself and the character and plot he's created here are obvious.
I enjoyed watching this video, and would recommend it-- selectively--to friends. If you like the Allen sense of humour, want to see a fairly unusual editing style used effectively, want to see some superb acting cameos by some very talented actors, or have an interest in the torments of a neurotic middle-aged genius and how they might be revealed on film, then you'll like this movie. If this doesn't sound like your kind of thing, watch something else.