Another Woman (1988 film)

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Another Woman
Another woman moviep.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Woody Allen
Written byWoody Allen
Produced by Robert Greenhut
Starring
Cinematography Sven Nykvist
Edited by Susan E. Morse
Distributed by Orion Pictures
Release date
  • October 14, 1988 (1988-10-14)
Running time
77 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,562,749

Another Woman is a 1988 American drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Gena Rowlands as a philosophy professor who accidentally overhears the private analysis of a stranger, and finds the woman's regrets and despair awaken something personal in her.

Contents

Modern film critics view Another Woman favorably.

Plot

Marion Post is a New York philosophy professor over 50 on a leave of absence to write a new book. Due to construction work in her building, she sublets a furnished apartment downtown for peace and quiet.

Her work there is interrupted by voices from a neighboring office in the building where a therapist conducts his analysis. She quickly realizes that she is privy to the despairing sessions of another woman, Hope, who is disturbed by a growing feeling that her life is false and empty. Her words strike a chord in Marion, who begins to question herself in the same way.

Marion comes to realize that, like her father, she has been unfair, unkind and judgmental to the people closest to her: her unsuccessful brother Paul and his wife Lynn, who feel they embarrass her; her best friend from high school Claire, who feels eclipsed by her; her first husband Sam, who eventually committed suicide; and her stepdaughter Laura, who admires her but resents her high-handedness.

She also realizes that her marriage to her second husband, Ken, is unfulfilling and that she missed her one chance at love with his best friend, Larry. She finally manages to meet the woman in therapy as she contemplates a Klimt painting called "Hope". Although she wants to know more about the woman, she ends up talking more about herself, realizing that she made a mistake by having an abortion years ago and that at her age there are many things in life she will not have anymore.

Marion leaves Ken after catching him in an affair. She resolves to change her life for the better, and takes steps to repair her relationship with Paul and Laura. By the end of the film, she reflects that, for the first time in years, she feels hopeful.

Cast

Background

Another Woman borrows heavily from the films of Allen's idol 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 sequences, and puts Marion into a similar situation as Isak Borg: both characters reexamine their life after friends and family accuse them of being cold and unfeeling. The film has many of Allen's signature features, particularly the New York City setting; only a few scenes are shot outside the city, in the Hamptons. It also uses classical music (Claude Debussy's orchestral arrangement of Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 , renamed Gymnopédie No. 3), and poetry (Rainer Maria Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo") to serve its narrative, as do earlier and later films such as Hannah and Her Sisters , Crimes and Misdemeanors , and Husbands and Wives . It focuses primarily on upper middle class intellectuals, as nearly all of Allen's 1980s films do.[ citation needed ]

Reception

Another Woman received modest praise from critics and holds a 59% positive "Rotten" rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes from 27 reviews. [1]

Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph called the film "one of [Allen's] shortest, least funny, and very best films". [2] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times similarly praised the film, awarding it a full four stars and writing, "Allen's film is not a remake of Wild Strawberries in any sense, but a meditation on the same theme: the story of a thoughtful person, thoughtfully discovering why she might have benefitted from being a little less thoughtful." [3] Variety praised the film as "brave, in many ways fascinating, and in all respects of a caliber rarely seen." [4]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times was more critical of the film, remarking, "Everyone speaks slightly stilted, epistolary dialogue. The rounded sentences sound as if they'd been written in a French influenced by Flaubert, then translated into English by a lesser student of Constance Garnett." He added, "Mr. Allen is becoming an immensely sophisticated director, but this screenplay is in need of a merciless literary editor. It's full of an earnest teen-age writer's superfluous words, in addition to flashbacks and a dream sequence that contain material better dealt with in the film's contemporary narrative." [5]

Modern reception is often more favorable. It was ranked 13th among Allen's works in a Time Out contributors' poll, with editor Dave Calhoun considering it "further proof that some of Woody’s finest films are those that drop the kvetching men to explore troubled women". [6] It was 19th in Chris Nashawaty's list for Entertainment Weekly . [7] The Daily Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey named Another Woman the director's fourth-greatest film, praising its "remarkably elegant hold on tone" and lauding Rowlands's performance as one of the finest in any film directed by Allen. [8]

Soundtrack

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References

  1. ↑ "Another Woman (1988)". Rotten Tomatoes . Archived from the original on September 1, 2015. Retrieved June 29, 2022.
  2. ↑ "Tim Robey recommends... Another Woman (1988)". The Daily Telegraph . May 10, 2013. Archived from the original on June 22, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  3. ↑ Ebert, Roger (November 18, 1988). "Another Woman". Chicago Sun-Times . Archived from the original on October 20, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Review: 'Another Woman'". Variety . December 31, 1987. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  5. ↑ Canby, Vincent (October 14, 1988). "Review/Film; Allen Directs Rowlands In 'Another Woman'". The New York Times . Archived from the original on February 11, 2019. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ "The best Woody Allen movies of all time". Time Out. March 24, 2016. Archived from the original on May 29, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  7. ↑ Nashawaty, Chris (July 18, 2016). "Woody Allen Films, Ranked". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on August 6, 2017. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
  8. ↑ Collin, Robbie; Robey, Tim (October 12, 2016). "All 47 Woody Allen movies - ranked from worst to best". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  9. ↑ Harvey, Adam (2007). The Soundtracks of Woody Allen. US: Macfarland & Company,Inc. p. 21. ISBN   9780786429684.
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