September (1987)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

After a series of lavish and often extravagant productions - Stardust Memories (1980), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) - September marks a surprising return for Woody Allen to the kind of minimalist, low-key drama he had previously turned his hand to with Interiors (1978).  In the decade since he made Interiors, Allen had developed and matured significantly, both as a writer and director, and yet September is, oddly, the more apprehensive and fragile of the two films - and one that Allen himself was never happy with.  Having shot the film once, he completely remade it with a revised script and new cast, and still he was unhappy with the outcome.  September is unusual for a Woody Allen film in that it is almost completely bereft of humour - indeed it is one of the director's most introspective and melancholic works, moodly shot with a predominantly yellow and brown palette that evokes so pointedly the dying days of a long but bitterly unfulfilled summer.

On a first viewing, September certainly feels slight compared with the director's other films.  Allen's pet themes are raked over yet again, this time with uncharacteristic (or at least unfamiliar) sensitivity and restraint.  The modest runtime (just over 80 minutes) is divided up fairly evenly between the six principal characters, all recognisable Woody Allen types conflicted by love, the brevity of life and the apparent meaningless of existence.  Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya was apparently the main inspiration for the film, and of all Allen's films this is the one that can most rightly be termed Chekhovian.  In his mise-en-scène, Allen almost goes out of his way to stress the staginess of the production - you'd think he was directing a stage play rather than a film.  And yet, modest as it is, the result is one of Allen's most compelling and thoughtful films.

It would be wholly unjust, having seen it once, to write September off as a minor Woody Allen offering.  On a second or third viewing, the film acquires a depth and significance that you could scarcely hope to discern by watching it just once over.  (This applies to many of Woody Allen's films, but it is especially true of this one.)  The subtlety of Allen's writing - which expresses far more succinctly and far more poignantly the killer idiosyncrasies of the human condition than in later, more elaborate films - is too easily overshadowed by the quality of the performances, particularly from the female side of the impressive cast line-up.

Allen regulars Mia Farrow and Dianne Wiest are as well-served as ever by their incisive dialogue, and their knock-out contributions convey so much of the injustice and tyranny of love that you can but wince as you are put through the emotional wringer.  Yet, excellent as Farrow and Wiest are, it is ultimately Elaine Stritch who steals the film, pulling off the incredible feat of making us sympathise with what must surely be the least sympathetic and most grotesque character in Allen's entire oeuvre - a mother so terrible that she deserves a place in Madame Tussauds.  Stritch, always a compelling performer, is at her most powerful in those scenes where her character is impelled to look inwards - to see past her crumbling delusions to the wasteland that lies beyond.

The male contingent of the cast - Sam Waterston, Jack Warden and Denholm Elliott - leave far less of a lasting impression, and this we can attribute to the film's one flagrant shortcoming: Allen's failure to make their characters convincing or likeable.  It is a characteristic of Woody Allen's cinema that most of the interest value lies in the female side of the dramatis personae, but in September the male characters are especially ill-served and are little more than dull archetypes - mere accessories for the trio of unstable females to react against.  It wouldn't have taken much effort on Allen's part to rewrite the script so that none of the male characters appeared on screen - and perhaps this might have resulted in a more impactful and coherent drama.  As it is, September is beguiling and insightful, blisteringly intense in a few scenes - and yet it feels unfinished.  It just cannot help looking like an intermediate draft for a much greater film - the masterpiece that was destined to remain just out of reach of it's author's grasp.

Film Synopsis

A chronic depressive in her mid-thirties, Lane hopes to recover her bearings by moving back to the country house in Vermont that she has inherited from her father.  She plans to sell the house so that she can pay off her debts and start up her own photography business in the city, but before she does so she spends one last summer in the house in the company of her best friend Stephanie, who desperately needs some time out from her unfulfilled marriage.  Lane receives moral and emotional support from an older man, Howard, who loves her intensely, but she is in love with another man named Peter - sadly, he is too preoccupied with the novel he is writing to pay her much attention.  Peter is more interested in Lane's outlandish mother Diane, a once-famous star who courted notoriety by eloping with a mobster.  As he toys with the idea of writing a biography about Diane, Peter finds himself drawn to Stephanie, who then becomes torn between her loyalty to Lane and the prospect of starting a new life with a younger man.  No sooner has Lane discovered Peter's interest in Stephanie than a second calamity hits her straight between the eyes: her mother claims the country house as her own and announces she will take up permanent residence with her husband!  Her dreams in tatters, Lane slips ever closer to a complete breakdown...