Deconstructing Harry | Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley

Deconstructing Harry | Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley | One of Allen's better films of the nineties...

DVDs:

World of Henry Ori... The Butter Battle ... Battle Fiddler on the Roo... Deconstructing Harry

	Deconstructing Harry Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley New Line Home Video, 1998 average customer review:based on 101 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Movie With a Message

Like a lot of writers, Woody Allen puts a little bit of himself into each of his films. If you pay attention, it's easy to see that beneath the humor, he usually has something to say that is most likely a reflection of his own beliefs about life, love, religion, or whatever else might be on his mind. The characters often resemble the writer/director and events often reflect what's going on in his own life.

Along that line, "Deconstructing Harry" might be Allen's most personal film. Harry, the main character, is a writer who creates dark, humorous stories. He typically draws on his own experiences in life, including his relationships with a half-sister, three former wives, and a young mistress. Of course, most of them aren't happy to find out they've become novels in his latest stories.

The movie has a large ensemble cast that includes Allen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal, Elisabeth Shue, Kirstie Alley, Tobey Maguire, Robin Williams, and Demi Moore. Some of the actors are playing characters in Harry's life, and others are characters in his stories. The movie takes a page from "Wild Strawberries," with the author going back to different times in his life as he prepared to be honored. But instead of flashing back to things that actually happened, the history is often given through the stories that Harry wrote. It's an interesting, novel, and humorous way to put together a film.

This is either a "love it" or "hate it" type film. Many critics considered it vulgar and profane, but they've really missed the point. The movie is tasteless at times, but that only helps to illustrate the theme of the film: that Harry is a despicable person in real life, but that doesn't mean he can't be a great artist. Since this movie was released at a time when Allen was being tried in the media for events in his personal life, the message seems very clear.

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One of Allen's better films of the nineties...

Deconstructing Harry is one of Allen's better films released in the nineties. (1997) Harry Block also is one of the more neurotic characters that Allen has ever created, as a neurotic writer with writer's block is the film's central theme. Harry is alcoholic, pops pills and prefers to have sex with prostitutes because of the acts lack of emotional commitment. Like many writers, he uses the people he knows in reality, their quirks, mannerisms, physical appearance and lives, as models for his fictional characters, which get him into a lot of trouble. But is this really fair to the people one knows, to use them in one's novels, sometimes negatively, to sell one's books?

The film is cleverly edited between the writer's life and the fiction he creates, as the audience can see his exaggerations, embellishments and his lack of responsibility to the people he hurts. The film also uses flashbacks in the character's life to show us why he is the way he is now. He uses a theatrical technique used by many great playwrights such as Chekhov and Arthur Miller, putting fictional or dead characters into a dialogue with the central protagonist as a tool of reflection and realization, giving the audience a different perspective of the story.

The amount of talent in this film is extraordinary: an older more distinguished looking Richard Benjamin (Catch 22, Goodbye Columbus), Kristie Alley as Joan, Billy Crystal as a friend, Larry, and the charming and understated Devil; Judy Davis (Husbands and Wife's) an excellent if not grating performance as Harry Block's jilted lover; and a young Toby Maguire (Spiderman) portraying a character, Harvey Stern in one of Block's short stories. The list continues from there - Marial Hemmingway, Demi Moore, etc. Some critics commented that he wrote the script to give all the great female actors a job in one of his films as defence against the criticism that he uses the same cast for all his movies. In fact this film is an attack on film and book critics generally. As there depicted as being on the same level as thieves and murderers. The nineties was not a good critical time for Woody Allen films.

Harry Block realizes that his real live is lacking due to his failed marriages and numerous affairs - that he can only live a fulfilling life through his art. As he is greeted in a dream by all his characters in his books, hundred's in fact, I was reminded of a story that Charles Dicken had a similar dream at the end of his life, where all the characters (Two thousand) from his many novels come to greet him before he leaves the earth. This purportedly gave the 19th century author meaning to his life during a severe depression. Interestingly the same can be said of Allen's character, Harry Block. Once he comes to terms with his shortcomings, it is his art, his writing that truly gives his life meaning.

Although not one of Woody Allen's best film's, it is certainly one of his better one's.

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NOT YOUR USUAL STRAIGHT-AHEAD BRAINLESS HOLLYWOOD NARRATIVE

the title ought to tip you off that an approach to viewing this film is required more sophisticated and acute than the usual Hollywood bright mights and mirrors delusions which accompany or popcorn.

In fact the first ten minutes of the lucious Louise DReyfuss pleasuring the elder Richard Benjamin are awful in itself, especially as an introduction to this film. Only later does it begin dimly to dawn upon us that these intriguing characters (just what is Dreyfuss's MOTIVATION here?), plus the iconic blind grandmother witness, are merely characters in Woody Allen (Harry)'s commercial rewrite of his life. In fact, we vainly come to miss the presence of some of these characters with concern for their outcome.

Once you get a hang of the narrative structure, it's pretty clear what is going on. In fact it is not far from Play it again sam, when fantasy (here formalized in writing) crosses with reality. I find this character of course more pathetic than any earlier character, and more true. THe whole episode of the lost son is especially telling, when one considers Mr. Allen's and his son Satchmo's suffering at the eccentric and vindictive hands of the bizarre and abusive Mia Farrow. And so the reality of Mr. Allen's life crosses the reality of his character Harry's life, which is further crossed by Harry's fantasizing into his writing as a means of making reality more bearable.

I really wish nondrinkers would not overestimate their capabilites after chugging various whiskeys.

The editing was so jarring it seemed amateurish and I thought my new DVD was choking on my brand new used disk, with several incomprehensible jumps, until I realized that was part of the deconstruction message as well.

THere is much to like and to think about here. How could a grown man believe a real out there street whore could hold the secret to peace and happiness and the resolution of our tragedies, and yet so much of us do just that, or they would have no job.

But those first few minutes one would not wish to see again. I can never look at Seinfeld in the same way, where the wonderful Dreyfuss is always the pratfall for the callous jokes of others.

A very nervous and jarring and challenging film, one worth seeing, but I would prefer to see Sam, or The Front, or take the money and Run

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Fans of Woody Allen will like it

This was a pretty good Woody Allen film packed with well known celebrities. Woody Allen is playing a novelist named Harry who written books based on people he knowns. He doesn't tries much to disguise them and upsets his friends with his tales. There are funny moments when the movie segues to his fictional characters. My favorite is the one with Demi Moore. The one with Billy Crystal is pretty funny too. In Harry's real life I got a kick out of Cookie the goodhearted prostitute.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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