Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)

I rented this knowing very little about it, other than it was a Woody Allen movie that had been nominated for Best Picture. Knowing that it was one of Woody Allen's good movies was enough to make me want to watch it, but I had expected it to be something of a comedy. It definitely has its laugh out loud moments, but to my surprise, it is so much more than that. I am tempted to call this my favorite Woody Allen film, though it would definitely be hard to put it over Manhattan, which is damn near perfect.

What this film has that I don't see in Annie Hall or Manhattan is maturity. Those movies are a little bit more about middle-age relationships, while Hannah deals almost exclusively with marriage and family. Also, this film has one thing that no other Woody Allen film has, Max von Sydow.

Allen casts Sydow as a brooding, misanthropic artist. It's a fairly minor role, but it's one of a number of great performances that make the film excellent beyond its already wonderful script. Michael Caine really steals the movie as the alduterous husband of Hannah, played touchingly by Mia Farrow. Woody Allen also turns in a good performance as a TV writer struggling with the possibility of death.

His existential crisis plays alongside Caine's regret and infidelity, similarly to the structure of one of Allen's other great films Crimes and Misdemeanors, where Allen, a documentary director questioning his integrity as an artist, has his story compared with the much darker story of a man driven to murder. I was at a baseball game tonight thinking about the final scene of that movie, and I felt absolutely crushed (but not for too long, as the Diamondbacks were about to beat the Dodgers).

Allen's character is largely superfluous, but adds themes and tangents that the film would be missing without it. His part in the movie is almost like Woody Allen deciding to direct his own Seventh Seal, playing out his fear of death on the screen just as Bergman did in his classic film (that would make sense as to why this of all his films, was the one that he cast von Sydow).

The more I think about it, the more I consider it among the best films I've ever seen. I would definitely need to see it again before being too sure about my thoughts on it, but it is absolutely a must see for fans of Woody Allen, or just anyone looking for a good movie. And if nothing else, you'll do a double take the first time you realize that Carrie Fisher actually exists outside of Star Wars.