Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

 

Hannah og hendes søstre

Before this project, if asked what a Woody Allen movie is like, I would have described it as something akin to “Hannah and Her Sisters” despite never having watched it before. And precisely for this reason I would not voluntarily have sat down to watch one. Today, my opinion on his movies is more nuanced with some of them actually being among my favourites, but I am afraid “Hannah and Her Sisters” will not make it to that status.

The setup is a group of people in New York (of course) centred around three sisters, Hannah (Mia Farrow), Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). There are three main story arches and the movie switches between the three of them and let them meet at various points.

In one of these lines Elliot (Michael Caine), Hannah’s husbond, is trying and succeeding in having an affair with Lee. Elliot is basically a horny middle-aged man and when he realizes what he has done he is caught in a pickle of remorse and indecision but at least it made Lee leave the intolerable Frederick (Max von Sydow), a man incredibly impressed with himself.

Holly is a washed-up ex-drug addict. She is trying to become an actress (of course) and fails. Her attempt at catering goes south when her partner, April (Carrie Fisher) takes both her prospective boyfriend and acting assignment. Only when she turns to writing, it seems to work for her, except those around her clearly blame her for witing about them.

Finally, Hannah’s ex-husband, Mickey (Woody Allen) is going through a crisis when he thinks he has a brain tumour. Mickey is Allen classic so he is super neurotic, super self-centred and talking like a waterfall. When he learns there was no tumour, he quits his job at a television show and starts to look for the meaning of life.

The key word all round is that all these characters are insufferable. Everything is about themselves, their personal needs, their personal animosities and their need to be recognized. Some of them are weak, like Holly, some are strong like Frederick, and some are even somewhat amusing like Mickey, but they are all clowns, and their lives seem to balance on the edge of self-inflicted disaster.

For me, this makes it very difficult to relate and sympathize with any of them and I know it is me misunderstanding the purpose of the movie. This all plays out for comedy, and we are supposed to laugh at all these people making a mess of their (and each other’s) lives, but I usually have a problem with that sort of comedy and instead look at the characters with a mixture of dislike and pity. Underneath this attempt at comedy, I sense the tragedy of self indulgence.

What does work here is the scenery and the soundscape. Both are, again, Allen classic. This is more New York than “Sex and the City” and the soundtrack has that jazzy thirties vibe Allen is so well known for. We all know he is in love with the thirties, and this is just another proof.

It is also an impressive cast we get here, a cast that, except for Allen himself, is acting against type. Caine is literally pathetic, von Sydow is arrogant beyond belief and Maureen O'Sullivan, as the mother of the sisters, is a loud alcoholic. They do it all very well as do the girls. I just do not like their characters.

“Hannah and Her Sisters” went on to win three Academy Awards (Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest for supporting roles and Allen for Best Original Screenplay) and was nominated in another four categories including Best Picture, so clearly somebody liked it better than me.

To me, the highlight was Woody Allen trying to join the Hare Krishna. That is actually a funny thought.