Deconstructing Harry
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Movie Reviews of Deconstructing Harry
Movie Review: A Movie With a Message
Summary: 5 Stars
Like a lot of writers, Woody Allen puts a little bit of himself into each of his films. If you pay attention, it's easy to see that beneath the humor, he usually has something to say that is most likely a reflection of his own beliefs about life, love, religion, or whatever else might be on his mind. The characters often resemble the writer/director and events often reflect what's going on in his own life.
Along that line, "Deconstructing Harry" might be Allen's most personal film. Harry, the main character, is a writer who creates dark, humorous stories. He typically draws on his own experiences in life, including his relationships with a half-sister, three former wives, and a young mistress. Of course, most of them aren't happy to find out they've become novels in his latest stories.
The movie has a large ensemble cast that includes Allen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal, Elisabeth Shue, Kirstie Alley, Tobey Maguire, Robin Williams, and Demi Moore. Some of the actors are playing characters in Harry's life, and others are characters in his stories. The movie takes a page from "Wild Strawberries," with the author going back to different times in his life as he prepared to be honored. But instead of flashing back to things that actually happened, the history is often given through the stories that Harry wrote. It's an interesting, novel, and humorous way to put together a film.
This is either a "love it" or "hate it" type film. Many critics considered it vulgar and profane, but they've really missed the point. The movie is tasteless at times, but that only helps to illustrate the theme of the film: that Harry is a despicable person in real life, but that doesn't mean he can't be a great artist. Since this movie was released at a time when Allen was being tried in the media for events in his personal life, the message seems very clear.
Movie Review: Wood's best film from the 90's
Summary: 5 Stars
In Deconstructing Harry, Allen protrays his alter-ego of Harry as an abomination, an ultra depressed, woman cheating, tap-dancing (with words), and obviously oblivious to other people's feelings persona. And yet, it is Allen's second best film in my opinion. I like characters like this in the movies, who are unsympathetic and yet in-advertantly by being the protagonist you have to feel a little sympathy after a while (how can't you when he reveals Billy Crystal as a Hollywood hating Satan, a common Jewish man turns out to be a murdering cannibal, and that there are signs that goddesses exist at Victoria's Secret?).Here, Harry has writer's block for the first time in his life (his last name is Block as well, pun possibly intended) since everyone he has taken from his real life and "thinly disguised" isn't around to give him any ideas (outside of the Crystal thing). The bulk of the film holds flashbacks, in brilliantly edited fashion, where he recollects his old stories, the alter egos of his real life wives and relatives and so on.
If Woody had made this movie as a deep and serious self-reflection of his demons, it would be interesting but it wouldn't be funny. Here, he reminds his old fans that he can bring laugh out loud jokes and gags, most for Jewish people, to be sure, but all around ones as well, and the moment you realize it's a comedy/drama and not a vulgar piece of cinema that was thrown from Woody's chair as a backlash to the critics, you'll have fun. One of the best pictures from 1997.
Movie Review: Woody wins with 'DECONSTRUCTING HARRY'
Summary: 5 Stars
I absolutely love Woody Allen! I don't care what public mishaps he finds himself in, he still manages to woo movie audiences with the same fiery jocularity and audasity as he has for the past 30 years. Next to "Mighty Aphrodite", and "Manhattan", this is one of Allen's best."Deconstructing Harry" could be looked at as Woody's love letter to himself. It's about a divorced writer, who during the course of the movie looks back on his life and his work in all it's facets and flaws, jokes and groans. He is to recieve an award for his work from a university, and in true Woody Allen style, he brings his son, a [prostitute], and a dead man in the back seat. Upon his arrival he is greeted and celebrated by all the people and characters who shaped his life and his work. FANTASTIC! Allen pulls off a hilarious plot tinged with that classic Allen wit and humor that shines through to our hearts and brains!
Packed with a great cast including Robin Williams, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Tobey McQuire, and Billy Crystal in a cameo as Satan (a role that he is PERFECT in), Allen once again proves that he always can get the right people for the job.
You could probably rename this movie "Woody on Woody", but that would sound kinda wrong! But it is Woody Allen on Woody Allen, an allegorical film about his own life and work, packed with a great cast, a great plot, fantastic humor and wit, and of course, Woody Allen, the great American humorist, the ringmaster of it all, deconstructing himself to find the true essence of himself.
Movie Review: Harry Block Lives in a Fellini Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
An homage to Fellini with dream sequences in which Harry Block's fictional characters from his short stories interwine with his real-life characters, Deconstructing Harry is about a writer who cannibalizes his life experience, using his loved ones and family as fodder for his fiction and who in the process alienates, humiliates, and enrages those people who prefer their secrets not be featured in published fiction. Amongst this turmoil the writer Harry is obsessed with freeing himself from himself--a sixty-year-old man who never grows up but who remains fixated on his childish ego, his raging lusts, and his incurable narcissism. Divorced several times, barely able to see his young son, and resenting that a lover whom he scorned is now marrying, he must negotiate between the people he has alienated and the fictional characters who merge with reality as he goes on a soul quest to answer the question: Can I ever grow up? I can't reveal the ending but will say that the film maintains a Fellinisque, comic tone that has a hint of magic. The film does an excellent job of showing Harry's real-life adventures and weaving them with dramatizations of his stories that parallel his condition.Movie Review: Absolutely five-star classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
I confess I got into Woody Alen's movies not too long ago (maybe some 4-5 years ago), but up to now I've come to highly respect his work, and "Deconstructing Harry" is simply brilliant. Some top moments: When Robin Williams has "lost focus" simply WILL make you laugh with a sense of respect for how brilliant Allen can be; the conversation between Billy Crystal (I reserve the name of the character he plays, in order NOT to spoil things) and Woody Allen (Harry) is awesome -your typical male-male chat in a sports bar, maybe, but taking place in a rather bizarre setting...
The story comes down to a writer who has lost inspiration and decides (bad idea, perhaps... or perhaps not!) to write about some of the episodes of his live, putting in the open some things that other people (ex-lovers, friends, etc.) would have preferred to keep in the closet.
Anyway, I shouldn't disclose to much, but one thing I have to say: you oughta see this movie. Bt the way, did I mention, there's (as usual) an incredible cast?