Alice (1998)

Woody Allen kicked off the nineties with a very difficult film to classify, 1990's Alice. Parts fantasy, drama, light comedy, and romance, it remains a very underseen film in Allen's filmography. However, to those who saw it and found themselves not liking it (or, in my case, feeling totally neutral about it), I urge you to try it on a second time. It was in a second, recent viewing of the film that I truly found myself 'getting' this picture. Perhaps you have to be in the right mood.

As the film opens, we pick up the story of Alice Tate (Farrow), an upper-class woman with a husband of nearly sixteen years, two children, a housekeeper, and a cook. She is bored with her life and the superficiality of it all, and a chance encounter with another parent at her children's school leads her to wonder if she's capable of having an affair. Her back, a long time pain, starts to hurt more than ever. Having sought out the help of several doctors and specialists, she winds up finding herself - in a last ditch effort at healing her pain - in the offices of acupuncturist/herbalist Dr. Yang.

Yang immediately senses that Alice's external back pain is the result of internal stress and emotion. He briefly hypnotizes her (though she swears she's not one of those 'kind who can be hypnotized') and uncovers the root of her pains. He prescribes her some herbs that he claims will help her. The journey of self-discovery - much like Gena Rowland's character in Allen's Another Woman - has begun.

The problems some viewers and critics of Alice seemed to have often center on the tone of the film - or rather the lack of tonality throughout. I know I felt the same after viewing the film for the first time nearly four years ago. I expected the film to go somewhere that it ultimately had no intention of going. Perhaps knowing this in advance allowed a second viewing of the film to be so much more enjoyable. Instead of worrying about where the film was going to go, I was able to focus more attention on the outstanding performances of Mia Farrow, William Hurt, and Joe Mantanga - and in smaller roles, the work of Judy Davis, Blythe Danner, and Bob Balaban. The cinematography is gorgeous and the music is wonderful - much as you'd expect from a Woody Allen film (again, assuming this is your cup of tea). Though the film primarily focues on Alice's journey of self, it is also capable of sustaining an innocent sense of romantic whimsy as well as a good dose of humor. Though the one-liners are few and far between in Alice, there is a much broader sense of comedy playing out underneath it all.

Though many prefer the deft comedy/drama mix of 1989's Crimes and Misdemeanors or the altogether more serious tone of Another Woman, Alice is nonetheless an often wonderful film which is sadly overlooked. Released in 2001 on DVD as part of the Woody Allen Box Set #2, it can once again be enjoyed in widescreen, as Allen intended. I recommend you take a look - even if you've already seen it.

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