September (1987)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sorry, this movie sucks

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

At a summer house in Vermont, neighbor Howard (Denholm Elliott) falls in love with Lane (Mia Farrow), who is in a relationship with Peter (Sam Waterston), who is falling for Stephanie (Dianne Wiest), who is married with children.This film was Woody Allen's biggest financial failure, bringing in less than $500,000. It is also often compared with his earlier film, "Interiors". These two things, while seemingly unrelated, are probably very closely related.As the plot above suggests, this is material just ready for a good comedy featuring a love triangle (or whatever shape this is). Instead, Allen made it completely serious and rather depressing, and it makes even his intellectual references (e.g. Kurasawa) fall rather flat, because these are not characters we are ready to open our hearts to.

September (1987) ** (out of 4) Six people gather in a Vermont summer home where they talk about love, their failures in life and what things might possibly make life better. It turns out that Peter (Sam Waterson) and his wife Lane (Mia Farrow) are going through some problems, which means that Peter is falling for another married woman (Dianne Wiest). It turns out that Lane is loved by the much older Howard (Denholm Elliott) and some of her problems might go back to her famous mother (Elaine Stritch) who is at the house with her new love Lloyd (Jack Warden). It turns out that Allen wanted to make a film in one location with a limited number of actors but the result is certainly less than entertaining and in the end September turns out to be one of the director's weakest efforts. I've read that Allen shot this film two and possibly three times and replaced various cast members throughout the production because he was never happen with the end result and one wonders what he feels about this finished product. From the opening sequence all the way to the ending I really felt as if I was watching a movie by someone trying to copy an Allen film. I found the entire film to be rather dry of any sort of humor or drama and what really killed the movie for me were the characters because they're so unlikeable. The Waterson and Farrow characters are completely boring and not for a second does the viewer ever care about them or worry about their happiness. I found the Farrow character to be extremely underwritten as if Allen wasn't really sure what he wanted to do with her. The Wiest character isn't much better and it's never clear why Waterson would be so attracted to her. The Elliott character isn't all that well written either but at least the actor does a good job in the part. The same could be said for Warden and his character and one really wishes that Allen had written the film around the two elderly actors instead of the women. Stritch is also fairly good in her part but her character just isn't that interesting either. It's clear that Allen wanted this film to be about the various paths one life could have gone through and how everyone wants to be wanted by someone. I'm sure in his mind there were other reasons behind these characters but none of them transfer to the screen.

Mia Farrow plays suicidal Lane, a child-like woman hoping to sell off the family cottage in Vermont so she can start life anew in New York City; she's surrounded for the weekend by her married friend (Dianne Wiest), a charming, struggling writer (Sam Waterston), an elderly neighbor who harbors a crush on Lane (Denholm Elliott), and Lane's demonstrative mama (Elaine Stritch) and her latest husband (Jack Warden). Seems mother and daughter were once the subjects of a scandalous murder-trial from years ago (shades of Lana Turner and daughter Cheryl), and Lane's emotional showdown with her mother provides an intense acting moment between Farrow and Stritch. Claustrophobic Woody Allen drama was one of the writer-director's biggest commercial and critical failures (he filmed it twice with two separate casts--this is the second version, the original remains unseen). It's a nearly-humorless study of the dangers of repression, yet the picture doesn't learn from itself--the handling is repressed as well--and few of these characters seem improved by the finale. Allen's languid pacing nearly comes to a halt during an electrical storm (at just 85 minutes, "September" doesn't exactly utilize its time wisely); however, this group of privately-tortured souls is as fascinating as the family in Allen's "Interiors." In fact, of the two films, this may be the better effort. *** from ****

There seems to be a misunderstanding between people and critics who have seen Woody Allen's September. It's as if they were expecting something and that something didn't deliver, or if it did, they either didn't catch up on it or it did so in an unsatisfying manner. I personally love this movie because of the situation it presents by putting together six people inside a summer home, filling them with the ghost of unrequited love and a secret that seems to be about to burst forth at any given time. Mia Farrow plays Lane, a mousy woman who is spending some time alone to nurse some inner hurts, has been harbouring a love towards Peter (Sam Waterston) who is considering writing a book based on her mother Diane (Elaine Stritch) who has come to visit with her husband Lloyd (Jack Warden). Peter at the same time is finding himself falling for Lane's friend Stephanie (Dianne Weist), while Lane is at the focus of a friend's attention (Denholm Elliott).September has this way of looking like a comedy of manners without the laughs and with a deadline to meet. The thing is, when you place so many people and so much angst together under one roof, it's only time before something unspeakable comes forth -- and in this case, it's the unresolved issues between Diane and Lane who have some truly awful baggage together. Due to the fact that Diane, even when she says she's moved on, is rather insensitive to her daughter, and her daughter is much too sensitive and incapable of moving forward, they seem poised for some serious explosion. It's all very modern-day Shakespearean and while the movie is devoid of any humor (except some witty dialog that only those keen in ear will catch), this could be, in a lighter tone, resemble the sitcom it's about to turn into. Even so, this is quiet affair, quintessential Woody, with a sextet of actors very much a part of his rotating troupe and a satisfying watch.