Even if you had been predisposed to toast Woody Allen for his courage in striking off in a new direction (namely, the comedian's traditional secret desire to do Hamlet), you will probably feel not much like celebrating after you have viewed the results of his labor. This deadly serious movie (accent on "deadly") creates the crisis atmosphere of an Excedrin advertisement; but unlike an Excedrin ad, there's no relief in store. The central crisis concerns the intrafamilial shock waves set off by a sixty-three-year-old man's abandonment of his lifelong wife -- a hypersensitive woman with a highly cultivated taste in beige, cream, and pale gray colors -- and his subsequent relationship with a "vulgarian" who clothes herself in loud reds. The family's grown-up children and their respective mates, all of whom are artistically inclined, suffer out loud and at great length with everyday problems that could be of interest only to themselves and their most ardent admirers; and inasmuch as we remain completely ignorant of their work, it is difficult to take much of an interest -- difficult, indeed, to take any attitude but the one expressed by all the characters here: "I have my own problems." Allen has previously parodied Ingmar Bergman, most notably in Love and Death, but here he is openly emulating the king of scab-pickers, starting immediately with the credits sequence: a blank background, plain emaciated lettering, and no music. This is an unintentionally better parody than Allen's earlier evocations of Bergman, but it is too painful to be fun. With Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, E.G. Marshall, Richard Jordan, and Diane Keaton. (1978) — Duncan Shepherd
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