1986 Movie
Dir. Woody Allen · United States of America · English
A mid-tier Woody Allen comedy hailed as one of his best, still falls flat
What was deemed Woody Allen’s most commercially successful film, Hannah and Her Sisters seemed to mark a turning point in the director’s neurotic palatability. Yet, it has not aged well at all. Yes, the Oscar-winning script is witty and aphoristic in a proper measure, the acting is on par with the stars involved (Mia Farrow, Michael Caine to name a couple), but the film as a whole barely registers as something more than mediocre. Especially in hindsight when—not even mentioning the Farrow/Allen controversies—we know how solidified certain tropes and characters types are for Woody Allen, there’s nothing about Hannah and Her Sisters that can remain truly fresh for contemporary audiences. That said, being in the company of such a stellar ensemble cast, also including names like Carrie Fisher, Maureen O’Sullivan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. A curious presence here is that of Ingmar Bergman collaborator Max Von Sydow, star of The Seventh Seal, especially since Allen borrowed themes and plot allusions from the Swedish filmmaker’s later work, Fanny and Alexander (1982).
Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.
"Allen weaves together the complex narrative strands with ease, punctuating the many variations on betrayal and love with three festive Thanksgiving dinners."
— David Denby
"One of Woody Allen's great films. Indeed, he makes nary a misstep from beginning to end in charting the amorous affiliations of three sisters and their men over a two-year period."
— Variety Staff
A quippy tale of relationship highs and lows among the extended family of three sisters—Hannah, Lee, and Holly—and their husbands/boyfriends.
Golden Globe nominee Mia Farrow deserves the spotlight. The star of Rosemary's Baby might have been overlooked by the Academy who awarded both Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest as supporting actors, but we here know better than that. As the titular Hannah (who is, in fact, overshadowed by her sisters), Farrow crafts a subtle performance of gradual disillusionment as her husband (Caine) sustains an affair with one of her siblings. There are only a couple of clues as to whether Hannah ever found out about the infidelity or not, but Farrow's slightly feigned composure conceals a potentially sarcastic stance against the normalization of men cheating. As in all Woody Allen films, men never know what they want, who they want, and when they want it, but no woman really confronts their shortcomings head on. Hannah, with her supportive words and seemingly endless empathy, actually exposes the inadequacy of her husband to the audience, gracefully and decisively.
No man can change between two Thanksgivings; not even between twenty-two.
Oscars
3 wins · 4 noms
Golden Globes
5 noms
Nat. Board of Review
1 nom
Savina Petkova, PhD, is a Bulgarian film critic and curator based in London whose work has appeared in Sight and Sound, Variety, Little White Lies, Cineuropa, and MUBI Notebook. She is the Programming Lead for Cambridge Film Festival and a senior editor at Talking Shorts, with a focus on contemporary European cinema.
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