The Purple Rose of Cairo
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Movie Reviews of The Purple Rose of Cairo
Movie Review: Lovely Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This sweet romantic movie is a favorite of many and perhaps Woody Allen's best film. Mia Farrow is perfect as sweet Cecilia who really deserves a handsome hero in her life, Jeff Daniels is great in his duel road and Danny Aiello plays a villain with enough charm that you can see why Cecilia got involved with him in the first place. The 1930's setting is well realized and nostalgic. And the movie within a movie is fantastic since as others have said Allen somehow makes the black and white fantasy world brighter and more appealing then the drab reality. Movie Review: A Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
An absolutely masterpiece, Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" is a great movie that even people who don't usually like Woody Allen might like. I love Woody Allen and out of all of the films I've seen by him (7, I think) this is in my top 3 (below Annie Hall and Manhattan). The movie blends comedy, romance, drama, and features a genuinely sad ending. Allen's baby mama (and wife's mama) Mia Farrow plays Cecilia, a Depression-era housewife trapped in an unhappy marriage. She works as a waitress, makes little money, and is clumsy which frequently pisses off her boss. To escape from everything, she goes to the movies. When she sees the newest movie, 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' she falls in love with the character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels); When Cecilia is finally fired from her job, she sees the movie five times in a row prompting the character Tom to take notice. In doing so, he walks right out of the screen and into the arms of Cecilia. Leaving his fellow characters trapped in the movie and needing him to come back, Tom takes off from the theatre prompting management to call the films producers. When the actor who plays Tom, Gil Shepherd (Jeff Daniels again) gets wind of it...He fears his career may be in jeopardy and he seeks out Tom, but falls in love with Cecilia in the process. Meanwhile, on screens across America; The Tom Baxters are going haywire, forgetting their lines and trying get out of the movie. It's definitely a strange and original idea that could fail in the wrong hands. Any fan of Allen's should love it, but I did say that non-Allen fans would like it too. Here's why. If you don't like Woody Allen because of his work (a lot of people don't like him because of the Soon-Yi debacle), then it's probably because you don't like the neurotic character that's featured in almost all of his films (and almost always played by him) or you don't look his way of storytelling (the Greek thing in "Mighty Aphrodite" or the three endings in "Sweet and Lowdown"); This film has no neurotic Woody character, straight-forward storytelling. The only way you could even tell it's a Woody Allen movie is from the score and the credit sequences. This is a truly wonderful movie and I highly recommend it.
GRADE: A
Movie Review: Reality vs. Fantasy
Summary: 4 Stars
In my humble opinion, Woody Allen is the best movie director that's currently out there practicing the trade. He says more, amuses more, and creates more on a relatively "shoestring" budget than any other director today. His popularity is apparently rather limited to the point that his movies usually don't even get shown in my town. Allen's films get praised by a lot of people "in the know" but, come Oscar time, about the only award handed out for his productions goes for Best Supporting Actress. Well, to each his own but I'll recommend every movie he's ever been involved in (with the lone exception of "What's New Pussycat?"); even the ones I haven't seen yet.
Last night I got my first look at "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and I ended up rating it "4 Star" mainly because I thought it moved along rather awkwardly at times (by Woody Allen standards). The concept is certainly original; an actor in a movie steps out of the screen and into real life (seems they're watching us as closely as we're watching them). I started seeing all sorts of possibilities and, I admit, I was disappointed that some of them didn't emerge. What did emerge was an excellent study of fantasy vs. reality.
The setting for the film was in the midst of the Depression which was a brilliant idea because it gave a readily understood backdrop of gloom and doom. Anyone would love to escape from such an existance. Our main character, played by Mia Farrow, finds her escape in the movie theatre. As the strange events unfold, she finds herself ultimately having to choose between fantasy and reality and we, the audience, find ourselves rooting for one choice or the other. (Even the exasperated screen characters were cheering sides as well). In the end she makes her choice and has to live with the consequences...or does she?
I saw this movie on TCM on a night they were celebrating Van Johnson. I presumed that the "late" Mr. Johnson would somehow be shown in one of his old sceen roles. However, there he was in a fairly small part looking well and doing a credible job. I learned, from Robert Osborne's introduction to the film, that it's still a little early to call Van Johnson "late". Much of the cast is competent to good with top kudos to Ms. Farrow. The ending to the movie was strong and I was almost tempted to give it a "5 Star" rating but I remembered that I had been significantly more impressed with some other Woody Allen movies I've seen lately.
Movie Review: More Drama Than Comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Its not really a comedy. Very little in Purple Rose is funny or meant to be. Sure, the characters in the movie coming to life and how they handle it has its moments. They treat the film more like a play; waiting for their cues, etc. Mia Farrow plays a weak, meek abused wife who retreats into a fantasy world where she meets the man of her dreams. Allen, a short, weak, bespectacled man, likes his women young and weak. No surprise there. In movie after movie, he portrays Mia Farrow as a mouse. Interesting that she seems never to have objected to this persistant typecasting. Purple Rose is extremely touching and heartfelt in a nostalgic, dreamy way. Jeff Daniels is great as both the actor and the fictional character who pursue Farrow for her affections.Movie Review: Realism and the lack of it
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very strong movie, a gem as other reviewers have said. It is Woody Allen entering the world of fantasy, mixing a very large dose of fantasy in with his reality. Characters in the movies relate directly with the audience and in one case, walk off the movie screen and into the theatre to mix with the people. Jeff Daniels of Dumb and Dumber is a small player in a film who walks right off the screen to be with the real life girl he has fallen in love with, Mia Farrow, wife of the loutish Danny Aiello, during the Depression.
Mia is frustratingly weak. She allows herself to be hit by Danny, to be cheated on and ridiculed. She is a sponge and a sap who supports a worthless taker of a husband. When his entreaties and his threats both fail to make her stay with him and continue to support him, he lets her go, knowing she won't last out there alone, knowing she'll return to him in a little while, and he's always right. So Mia is a frustrating character to root for. She never wins.
Danny isn't the most realistic character, or at least I don't think he is. In almost every one of his scenes I am left believing that his words and his behavior are not realistic. A real man wouldn't talk and act that way. Of course a real man might cheat on his wife, lie to her, smack her. I'm not disputing that. But I think every one of his scenes is poorly written and unrealistically played. Woody is dabbling, making it up as he goes along, creating a character who doesn't behave as a cheating, lying, brutish man would. Are you a sensitive enough viewer to pick that up about him and recognize the lack of realism in the lines he is given? Probably not. Most people aren't. But it's there. If you have an ear for realistic dialogue and motivation, Danny Aiello's scenes will all be jarring. His quick changes are all artificial, maybe because Woody doesn't have a feel for how a guy like that would really be. Does the fight scene and its aftermath ring true for you? If so, you don't have a feel for reality either. None of Danny's scenes are very good, and it's Woody's fault, not Danny's.
I suppose he could argue that the whole movie is a fantasy, so what am I looking for reality for. He doesn't really care about realism. He's just painting, like a French impressionist, so enjoy the ride. But I prefer some realism in my characters. Otherwise what's the point.
Still, I was debating between four stars and five, because it is an excellent movie. The reason I settled on only four isn't the lack of reality in Mia's marriage, but the dud of an ending. It didn't have to be that way. Woody didn't have to leave us with a dud ending. He thinks he did have to, I think he didn't.
Look, Mia, you are too weak and stupid, too chained to your circumstances, to do anything about your marriage or your life, and besides that, we will see to it that you don't catch a break anywhere you turn. So just live out your futile life and then die a loser and a sap.
Thank you Woody for that excellent view of life on Earth. For that, I take away one of your stars.
The strongest thing about this movie for me is the way Woody tears away the veil of reality from our present lives. I happen to agree that this world is a stage set, that there really is another, a more real world, call it Heaven, and that everything here on Earth is a stage prop. As Macbeth says, we are poor players strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage, and yes, I think this Earth is nothing but a stage to play out our dramas before we return home to reality, to our home in Heaven. So I like the way Woody strips away the illusion of reality to our lives here on Earth. I don't think Earth is "real", and if you read a modern physics book you will see that our top scientists don't either. Earth is just the view that we are set up to see, based on what we're made of. A tiny subatomic particle would pass right through the space between the atoms of the Earth and not even know a planet is here. And its reality is as "real" as ours.