DECONSTRUCTING HARRY 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
2 :-( :-( for Deconstructing Woody
Cast: Woody Allen, Judy Davis, Elizabeth Shue, Kirstie Alley, Bob Balaban, Hazelle Goodman, Eric Lloyd, Billy Crystal, Richard Benjamin, Demi Moore, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, Stanley Tucci, Robin Williams Director: Woody Allen Screenplay: Woody Allen
In this Umpteenth episode of the Life and Trials of Woody Allen, he shouts his personal views about life, hell and Judaism for the world to hear. There is no holding back, no matter how much you disagree with him. When you watch this movie from start to finish, you have to listen to him whine about this, that and the other. Some of it will be funny, but most of it … is … tedious.
I enjoyed Allen's last two ventures into movie making - MIGHTY APHRODITE and EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU. I felt that at last, Woody Allen was becoming more commercial and palatable to the general public. In DECONSTRUCTING, Woody tries to weave the tale of a man's life, his life, through characters in his novels that are based on characters in reality. This is an interesting approach, but can get annoying when one is trying to match a novel character to the corresponding character in real life, especially with constant flipping about. The general rule of thumb is, the character in the novels are usually the better looking ones ie Demi Moore\Kirsty Alley; Julia Louis Dreyfus\Judy Davis etc
Surprisingly, this is also one of Woody's most uninhibited movies with plenty of casual sex, oral sex, writhing naked bodies (in hell), which is too liberal for my taste. But hey this is a man who finds it acceptable to bed an adopted daughter, so what can I say. His rant about Judaism will no doubt shock and dismay some Jews, but this is a topic that's too hot to handle, so I'll just say ‘Shalom'. The script is well written, the sentences wonderfully constructed and one can even find a progressive chain of thought somewhere in this Academy nominated script, but when Woody gets personal, he really let's himself go and the world may not be ready for such an overly-progressive thinker.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au Movie Archives http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon Hugues Bouclier's Movies in Melbourne http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~bouclier/week/movies.html
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