The Purple Rose of Cairo
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Movie Reviews of The Purple Rose of Cairo
Movie Review: Clever and clean
Summary: 5 Stars
In a depression era Manhatten setting, Mia Farrow plays a hard working, low pay waitress with an abusive husband. Her outlet is going to movies. Fantastically, the world behind the screen gets mixed up with the world in front of it. Mia meets fictional film star (Jeff Daniels). Romantic situation ensues.
Quite clever. Rich settings and a high end cast. Well directed by Woody Allen. Woody does not appear in this film, but if you watch/listen closely, his presence is there vicariously and unmistakably in Farrow's character.
Woody pokes a little fun at the Hollywood elite and tinseltown "phonyism", while giving a nod to the working class with their paycheck to paycheck existence and respectable values.
Very original. Very good.
Movie Review: Not accessable in Australia
Summary: 1 Stars
I was unable to view the DVD The Purple Rose of Cairo as it is limited to Regions within the USA. I am in Sydney, Australia and the DVD is of no use to me. I was very dissappointed.
Movie Review: The Purple Rose of Cairo
Summary: 5 Stars
Inspired by Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr.," but also very much indebted to RKO's 1930s screwball comedies, "Rose" is a sweet, nostalgic, and appealing fantasy directed with flair by comic genius Woody Allen. Daniels really nails his dual part, playing the dreamy black-and-white character who falls for Cecilia, and the actor, Gil Shepherd, behind the role. Yet Allen builds the film around Farrow, wonderful as always playing a melancholy hausfrau. If you want to know why audiences flocked to the theater during the Great Depression, see the appealing, wistful "Purple Rose." One of Allen's personal favorites, as well as mine.Movie Review: "Tom Baxter's come down off the screen and he's running around New Jersey!... Nobody knows how it happened, but he's done it."
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Purple Rose of Cairo" was the first Allen's movie I saw back in Moscow in the end of the 80s and it started my eternal love for his films. "The Purple Rose..." is wonderful, is one if Allen's greats - a perfect combination of poignancy and humor, romance and drama, reality and fiction. It is the movie-within-the-movie that blends sophisticated romance from the lives of rich and beautiful where the dashing main hero with bravery and chivalry written into his character always gets a girl and Depression Era New York City where a poor waitress tries to escape the realities of her joyless life in the movie theater. The story focuses on Cecilia (Mia Farrow), a waitress and a battered wife of an unemployed abusive man (Danny Aiello). Cecilia only feels alive when she watches her favorite movies that take her away from her dreary realities. One day, as she watches "Purple Rose of Cairo" for the 10th or maybe 15th time, the leading man Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) decides to leave the movie and be with Cecilia in real life. His screen partners are left confused and "trapped" in a scene they can't get out of. The live actor who plays Baxter is blamed by the film's producer for his character's rebellion and tries to get him back on the screen. Cecilia's husband finds out that his wife was seen with a good looking man instead of working as a babysitter in the evening. On the top of all, Tom Baxters in other theaters try to leave "Purple Rose of Cairo", too... It is not the first or last time Allen has played with the concept of the thin line (in this film, the silver screen) that divides film's world and reality but rarely has he created the film as sweet, gentle, sad, technically realized and simply terrific as "Purple Rose of Cairo".
9.5/10
Movie Review: I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional; but you can't have everything
Summary: 5 Stars
Woody Allen's The Purple Rose Of Cairo ranks among his better films. The film centers on the experiences of a poor woman named Cecilia who is played wonderfully by Mia Farrow. Cecilia is trapped in a loveless marriage to a brute named Monk who is played by Danny Aiello.
Cecilia has a job as a waitress in a small diner during the depression and although she tries to work hard she can't help but fantasize and chat about the movies with her sister who also works at the same diner. Cecilia's only comfort is in the movie theater watching glamorous but highly contrived movies about rich people who aren't suffering from poverty and the scorn of her husband. Cecilia eventually loses her job and after catching Monk being unfaithful to her she winds up watching The Purple Rose Of Cairo endlessly at the small movie theater in their town.
Imagine Cecilia's surprise when one of the characters, the dashing all-American type guy Tom Baxter, decides to leave the film, jump from the screen into the audience, and run away with Cecilia! Tom represents the purity of heart and the true compassion that Cecilia longs for in her real marriage. She knows Tom is fictional because he came off the movie screen; but Tom maintains he's never going back because he wants to experience the real world with Cecilia as his new bride.
Of course, all of this horrifies the movie theater manager and the Hollywood studio that produced the film entitled The Purple Rose Of Cairo. How inconvenient this is for Gil Shepherd, too, the actor who portrayed Tom Baxter in the film! The movie studio executives and Gil Shepherd hatch a plan to get Tom to return to the movie--but will it work? What would happen if Tom returned to the movie but took Cecilia with him into the land of make believe?
The Purple Rose Of Cairo is a film you cannot afford to miss. Mia Farrow as Cecilia, Danny Aiello as Monk, Cecilia's husband and Jeff Daniels as both Gil and Tom all give some of the most convincing performances I've ever seen. Their performances moved me and engaged my attention much longer than I initially thought they would.
This movie deals with the universal human desire to escape the pain and boredom of everyday life so many of us experience and to replace that misery with a world in which there are no real problems and everyone has money or at the very least a secure job. Cecilia represents us all as she delights to Tom's world of relative innocence and harmony. Therein lies the true strength of this film.
The cinematography shines: I like the scenes in the movie house where you see the film being screened within Woody Allen's picture. The scenes filmed in the amusement park reflect careful forethought concerning lighting and camera angles. The choreography amazes me: I love the scenes in which both the movie theater patrons and the actors in the film are stunned by Tom's decision to leave the movie and they all move about simultaneously in ways that prove good judgment on the part of Woody Allen and his colleagues who worked on this film.
Overall, The Purple Rose Of Cairo will remain an excellent film as long as the human condition and the quality of our lives are imperfect. Everybody dreams of a world where their true desires are reality and their troubles disappear. The Purple Rose Of Cairo elegantly explores this theme with sophistication, wit and poignancy.