Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: Woody Allen

Starring: An ensemble cast including Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Max von Sydow, Barbara Hersey & Dianne Wiest

From: Orion

The movie starts and ends at Thanksgiving although this would be a tremendously awkward watch if you saw it that day with your family.

This usually isn't in my wheelhouse, but it was recorded off of TCM early in the month and while my DVR has more than 4/5ths room left before yesterday, I still wanted to clear a movie off of it so this was selected. Not that long ago I talked about watching Woody Allen movies and how that's not an endorsement of him as a human being, and that still stands. The plot follows the titular Hannah-Mia Farrow-and her two sisters, played by Barbara Hershey & Dianne Wiest. All three sisters have various problems; it also follows a few men connected to the sisters. This includes a pretentious A-hole played by Max von Sydow and Hannah's husband Michael Caine... who ends up falling for one of Hannah's sisters.

There are two moments which needs to be mentioned and it involves the character that Allen plays in this film. He's a hypochondriac-not a surprise-who is a television writer and Hannah's ex-husband. The introduction to this character involves him freaking out over everything. That includes the rejection of a sketch he wants presented; that is because the topic of that sketch is... CHILD MOLESTATION. If that didn't sell chills up your spine, the sketch was going to mention THE POPE; no comment. That was a genuine jaw-dropper, something that floored me. The second thing involves someone attempting to take their own life, although the end result was darkly funny and not tasteless like it probably sounds; this needed to be said so that no others are blind-sided like I was.

The movie is a comedy/drama; while there are occasional laughs, there is also serious drama concerning characters having an existential crises, family arguments, relationship strife, and other issues. It's not entirely miserable; one person realizes that life is worth living and you should enjoy it while you're alive instead of worrying about the afterlife. What a murderer's row of talent present. Besides the names already mentioned, there's Carrie Fisher, Lloyd Nolan in his final film role, Maureen O'Sullivan as the mom in the family-Farrow's real-life mom, for those that don't know-Daniel Stern and plenty of others that have small to real small roles: Lewis Black, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sam Waterston, J.T. Walsh, John Tuturro, and Richard Jenkins.

Caine and Wiest won Oscars for their performances although the rest of the main cast were almost as good. It was more engrossing than expected so unlike what happens at times, this blind watch was a successful one. The fact that the characters felt real and it was inspired by the likes of Bergman & Visconti... mature, this was.