Word: allen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Where to start? Here's the short version: Deconstructing Harry, the new movie from writer-director-actor Woody Allen is a) very funny, b) very unfunny, c) very personal, d) strangely detached, e) dense as hell and f) strangely unsatisfying. Here's the long version...
...fragmented, occasionally surrealistic style meant to reflect the mental state of its protagonist, Deconstructing Harry tells the story of Harry Block (Allen) a--surprise--neurotic writer with a penchant for antidepressants, prostitutes and incorporating the details of his personal life into his literature. For the first time in his life, he's suffering from writer's block--get it? Harry...Block. Via flashbacks and vignettes representing Block's fiction, the film relates the author's psychosexual hangups, difficulties with fidelity and issues with religion. The movie is loosely structured around Block's repeated attempts to find someone to accompany...
...Most of the humor here is fresh, dead-on and perfectly timed. From the miscellaneous tortured souls ("What did you do?" "I invented aluminum siding") in the netherworld to its wonderfully nefarious ruler ("I ran a Hollywood studio for two years, but you can't trust those people"), Allen's pen bleeds snappy oneliners and razor-sharp satire. If only the preceding hour of the film had been as enjoyable...
...very personal. Ultimately, Deconstructing Harry is about a writer whose greatest epiphany comes when he stops denying the close relationship between his life and literature. Allen, who for 30 years has firmly denied any element of autobiography existing in his work, seems to be making some confessional statement with the film. Manifestly autobiographical segments, including an amusing sendup of Mia Farrow's allegations of Allen's misconduct with their child, support this interpretation. But Allen complicates things by introducing drastic contradictory elements--his character's interest in fetishist prostitutes, drug and alcohol addiction, and painfully inarticulate vulgarity seem intended...
...Strangely detached--In the ways noted above, Allen distances himself from the material, but his directorial estrangement goes far beyond his own character. Through both his writing and directing, Allen systematically destroys any chance for his lead actresses, specifically Judy Davis and Kirstie Alley, to do any acting at all. Instead, he forces them into ugly, pathetic, caricatured roles not worthy of a fraction of their talent. Davis, a brilliant actress, is wasted as the strung-out, borderline-psychotic ex who comes to Harry's apartment looking for retribution. In Allen's 1992 Husbands and Wives, she delivered a devastatingly...