Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hannah and Her Sisters, nominated for Best Picture of 1986, takes place over the course of one year. In fact, it begins with one Thanksgiving celebration and ends with the following year's party. It's an examination of the relationships between three sisters, played by Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, and Barbara Hershey. Each has her own set of issues to deal with, but many of them relate, quite unsurprisingly, to their relationships with men. This film, like many others by writer-director Woody Allen after Annie Hall, is somewhat episodic in nature, with intertitles separating scenes from each other and indicating the passage of time. By turns funny and charming and melancholy, Hannah and Her Sisters is a strong film overall, primarily due to the large and talented cast.

Hannah (Farrow) is divorced from Mickey (Allen) and now married to Elliot (Michael Caine). She's meant to be the stable one of the family, the one everyone else turns to in times of crisis, including their parents (the amazing Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O'Sullivan, Farrow's real-life mother). Wiest's Holly seems to be on a losing streak of late, having little success in her acting career and opening a catering business with a friend who turns out to be a rival for the affections of an architect. She has dated Mickey in the past, but a chance encounter later in the film starts them on a fresh relationship. Lee (Hershey) is happy, at least on the surface, in her relationship with an artist, Frederick (played by Max von Sydow), but once Elliot admits that he is attracted to her, Lee begins a clandestine relationship with her sister's husband.

Even in that brief summary, I've managed to leave out some remarkable moments, like the audition that Holly and her friend April, played with gusto by Carrie Fisher, attend. It's a disaster, by the way. There's also Daniel Stern's brief role as a potential purchaser of Frederick's art (so long as it's the right size for his big blank walls and matches the color of the furniture). The film also features several moments at Mickey's job, where he works with Julie Kavner and a series of other bright talents. The number of great performances in the movie is pretty staggering to contemplate, actually.

In the midst of all of this coupling and uncoupling and other activity, you have grand discussions of art and theater and television and numerous other "serious" topics. You also have an interesting series of vignettes involving Allen's Mickey going to doctor after doctor trying to determine if he has a tumor. It's overall a rather serious film by Allen, one that manages to blend comedic moments into realistic day-to-day events, the little moments that seem to become magnified when reconsidered. I know I've concentrated perhaps too much on the funnier aspects of Hannah and Her Sisters, but the overall emotional impact of the film is not primarily due to the bits that make you laugh. Instead, it's the warmth of the human interaction, the real feelings that are expressed--sometimes painfully--by these people. It's a well-written movie, of course, and worthy of its reputation as one of Allen's best.