ALICE
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
Every year, just as winter peaks and begins to peter out into a sloppy mess, Woody Allen redeems this most cheerless of seasons with a new movie. This year he gives us ALICE, which stars Mia Farrow and in which Allen himself does not appear. But, of course, Allen need hardly appear physically in a Woody Allen film for his presence to dominate and inform every scene. His major presence in ALICE is that Mia Farrow has begun to speak her lines exactly as Allen does, even to the point where it becomes somewhat distracting.
The title character, played brilliantly by Farrow, is a modern, upper-crust, neurosis-ridden Manhattanite interpretation of the Lewis Carrol Alice. Farrow's Alice takes Chinese herbs with a lot more various effects that the old "one side makes you taller" routine of the Caterpillar. The herbalist/acupuncturist is played by Keye Luke, who long ago and in a different world was, I believe, No. 1 Son in the the Charlie Chan series. Everywhere Alice goes there are looking glasses in background. This Alice is an innocent on the cusp of discovering herself.
Her husband is a cold, patronizing, and treacherous William Hurt. Her lover is Joe Mantegna. Mantegna's performance is particularly good, being the only actor in the movie who has chance of stealing the lead from Farrow. Julie Kavner, Bernadette Peters, and Cybil Shepherd have minor roles; the wealth of Allen is staggering if he can afford to underuse such major character actors as Kavner (who is also appearing AWAKENINGS currently) and Peters (who has never had a good movie, but for whom hope springs eternal).
Gwen Verdon, who was the fabulous dancer/singer who starred as Lola in DAMN YANKEES long time passing (remember "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets (and, Little Man, Lola Wants You)"?), appears as Alice's mother, who had a short career in the movies before she drank herself to death with Margaritas ("But, darling, you know I never could resist anything with salt on the rim.").
Allen, by the way, does us all a major service when he finds and uses some otherwise nearly forgotten of star of other years. In NEW YORK STORIES, the woman who played his mother was the original voice of Betty Boop, for example.
(I read this last week a description of Hurt grabbing Mantegna and dancing around in a circle yelling "We're going to do a Woody, we're going to do a Woody!")
Too much praise for Farrow's accomplishment is not possible. She brings a guileless honesty to her role, a deadpan serious to the hijinks and fantasy that makes them all the more delightful. In many ways, ALICE marks Farrow's emergence as a major film actor.
Another reliable feature of Allen films is the music. Allen is well-known to be a major, major jazz aficionado, who, like Mantegna's character, Joe, plays the sax and who has a record collection that is reliably described as fantastic. The sound track of ALICE features some well chosen selections from such a collection, including "Alice Blue Gown" and that one about Old Chinatown.
Unfortunately, I do not think the movie per se is as good as its performers. The fantasy elements are handled well, but my own class prejudices are such that I have trouble being too sympathetic toward upper-class angst. My prejudices aside, the ending of the film is horribly, disfiguringly hurried and left me with a very unsatisfied feeling.
Briefly, I have to say that ALICE is major Farrow, but minor Allen. But then, as others have remarked, a second-rate Allen movie is better than just about anyone else's first-rate movie.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
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