Deconstructing Harry
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Movie Reviews of Deconstructing Harry
Movie Review: Allen's self-exploration vignettes
Summary: 4 Stars
Weaving between fiction and reality, Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry tells the tale of a writer's sexual exploits, romantic failings, and dealings with depression. Allen's character Harry transfers his life's problems into his books, which causes much strife between the real-life counterparts in his world. Once again Allen has leveraged his considerable fame to draw in Hollywood's elite. Throughout the film, every face is a familiar one. Billy Crystal is portrayed as the devil who steals Woody's romantic lead, Robin Williams as a blurry actor who can't get his focus, Kirstie Alley as a ex-wife who discovers Harry has cheated with a patient, and countless more celebrity cameos.
The joy in partaking in this film is evident in the celebrity actors who appear. There's a certain prestige in such an endeavor, and we, the film audience, can identify just about everyone in the film. At the same time, each character that appears has so much baggage in our minds. For instance, Demi Moore appears as an ex-wife. How many of us can honestly think of her in any way other that her celebrity profile. While this isn't a major problem, identifying with some of the celebrities proves difficult at times.
Deconstructing Harry catalogs Woody's struggle with sexual desire and his inability to love. Early on we discover that he has finally found true love in a pupil, Elizabeth Shue, but she has fallen in love with his friend.
The plot is shaped around Harry's self-identity questions, and the character's goal is to go to an honorary ceremony at his alum. He has nobody to take. His ex-wife won't let him take his son, his girlfriend has left him, and a hooker is the only one around that will take him up on his need for companionship.
The play between Allen's semi-autobiographical stories, which flash to and from reality, illuminate the film and shows how Allen's writing channels his depression and gives him a release from an otherwise ugly life.
After viewing Deconstructing Harry, I wonder how autobiographical it really is.
Movie Review: Allen on Allen
Summary: 4 Stars
First off, Deconstructing Harry is a interesting, often funny film that stays on track right until the ending which, in light of the rest of the film is trite.This is a story about a seriously [messed up] writer that transposes it's way between reality, the writer's stories - frequently comedic and very funny - and balancing these elements into an easy to watch, mostly satisfying film.
The character, Harry is a thinly veiled version of Woody Allen although at this point there are so many films Allen has made that contain his own experience the only thing that's different here is the intense level of hostility which actually makes for good contrast to the comedic segments.
Typical themes of a Woody Allen film are here; self-loathing and the artist as incapable of having relationships with women that don't implode along with a new vigor for more explicit sexual themes and language. Once more Allen plays the anti-jew - at times he appears to have borrowed that character, if not part of the Harry character from Philip Roth's fiction.
There's also lots of guilt, being a questionable parent, in-jokes about critics and media....it just goes on and on. And that is why I like Deconstructing Harry. Even though we've heard it before Woody Allen manages to develop the formula to a darker depth and uglier person. Harry/Allen is not a nice schmoe that anyone could find adorable as in many previous films. The 'self realization' ending rings false in the context of this otherwise well written and acted film. It is worth mentioning in his films after this one he is indeed more relaxed and mostly back to whimsical comedies. So perhaps there's truth to the ending's 'accepting your problems and moving on' theme.
This is about as negative a film as 'Stardust Memories' which Deconstructing Harry feels like an update of.
Movie Review: One of Woody's Best Films
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a huge Woody Allen fan, more for his ability to delve into the urban and sometimes urbane lives of very flawed people than his slap stick comedy. Looking at his corpus of work, it is hard to believe that movies like Bananas, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Husbands and Wives and, my favorite, Crimes and Misdemeanors could come from the same person. Deconstructing Harry remains true to the title as the viewer is given a wild postmodern view of a man who wrestles with his own identity amidst the numerous identities he has created around him. Allen's character is, as is often the case with Allen, startlingly autobiographical, while the character also suffers from the fact that his stories are also insultingly biographical.
While Celebrities may surpass this film in vulgarity, Allen comes pretty close in this one, with a level of humour that is almost crude, even with a touch of rare anger. There is no "simple" adultery here; the character is blatantly sexually obsessed. It makes for simultaneously hilarious and sobering comedy.
At the time of watching the film, I wondered if this was perhaps Allen's last film. The moving tribute he gives to the characters he has created over the years is touching, and would have been a good exit for a man whose careers has spanned decades. Retrospectively looking at films Allen has made since then still makes me think it would have been a good end.
Movie Review: Another Allen film grown stronger with time
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently re-watched this on DVD and was surprised to find I liked it much more than on seeing it in the theater on it's initial release. (Something that's happened to me with a number of Woody Allen films).
I recalled it as misogynistic and self serving. While it still has moments of those qualities, it feels like Allen is toughest of all on himself. But is he tough enough? This is certainly the worst, most abrasive and selfish Allen has ever let himself look on screen, but there was still a feeling of pulling his self-aimed punches just a bit. Sort of an "All That Jazz" lite.
The film has a large number of very funny lines, and creative ideas (Robin Williams as an out-of-focus actor is a brilliant concept), and its fun to see a filmmaker Allen's age pushing his style limits, with jump cuts and multi-layered construction. Still, it starts to repeat its own ideas after a while, both literally and thematically, and the ending feels a bit wimpy.
All said, while not Allen's best, its still a dense, funny, inventive, thoughtful film, from a world class film-maker -- something sadly increasingly rare in American cinema.
Frustrating and concerning that this film, like almost half of Allen's output, is out-of-print. I can only assume an upgrade re-release of his catalog is on the way, but given faltering DVD sales, and rights battles, fans might want to grab copies of Allen's films just in case.
Movie Review: Funny & original
Summary: 4 Stars
This is perhaps Allen's most consistently funny offering of recent years. Here, Allen plays a neurotic writer who finds it easier to manage the semi-fictional world of his characters (projections of family, friends and his own fears and psychological hangups) than the real world. So far, the character is just an extension of the same cynical New York-Jewish type that he has been playing for years. The originality is found in the stories within the story. The traumas and dilemmas that face Allen's character find themselves worked out in surreal and quite ingenious vignettes, firstly in the realm of his fiction, but increasingly in his day-to-day life, as things go from bad to worse. As ever, Allen exploits every irony, and is frequently hilariously sardonic as he explores the world of the archetypal, tragic neurotic, to whom life has dealt one hard blow.On the downside, the bad language is more frequent and offensive than any other Allen film, and the sexual content more explicit (visually). Other than that, this one will have you in stitches.