Deconstructing Harry | Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley

Deconstructing Harry | Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley | a masterpiece

DVDs:

Deconstructing Harry

	Deconstructing Harry Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley New Line Home Video, 1998 average customer review:based on 99 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Woody Allen roared back at his detractors with Deconstructing Harry, a bitterly funny treatise about the creative process. Known to mine his often tumultuous personal life for his movies, the embattled writer-director-star didn't bother to make his alter ego likable in this movie: Harry Block (Allen) pops pills, frequents prostitutes, and cheats on the women in his life, then writes about their foibles in thinly disguised fiction. No wonder they're all furious with him. As Harry journeys to his alma mater with a hooker, ill pal, and kidnapped son, a series of flashbacks unravel, juxtaposing Harry's relationships with their "slightly exaggerated" fictional counterparts. There are amusing cameos throughout, including a humorous turn by Demi Moore as a fictitious ex-wife who "became Jewish with a vengeance," and Billy Crystal as the devil who found Hollywood too nasty for his liking. The humor is dark and caustic, but well worth it; Deconstructing Harry is a near-brilliant mediation on the sometimes queasy relationship between art, creator, and critic. --Diane Garrett

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Exhilarating Depression

Woody Allen, for some, is an acquired taste. Many remember him for "Annie Hall," while others appreciate his darker side in "Crimes and Misdemeanors." I lean toward the latter, and therefore find this film among his very best. Brilliantly conceived, the jump cuts that create the sense of memory at work begin early with the arrival of Judy Davis at Woody's apartment, to give him hell for having depicted their relationship in his recent novel. Davis is at her best, a fulminating monster of rage. Memory and guilt fill the story of this tormented writer who has no sense of loyalty, save that to his art. The actors are fantastic: Richard Benjamin, Billy Crystal, Philip Bosco, Robin Williams. This film was made when Woody was at the top of his form. His cast and crew fully fulfill the tormented inner life of the writer whose needs are insatiable.

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a masterpiece

One of the funniest movies ever made.

Woody Allen is an acquired taste, like oysters. If you like'm on the half shell, he hit this crustacean out of the lagoon.

The "elevator to hell" bit had me in tears. Pookie the hooker, and the whole crew on the road trip to the university -- well, who else but Woody Allen conjures up this kind of stuff and puts it on film?

Writing, acting, directing...everyone was in synch with Mr. Allen's history, angst, sturm, drang and reputation.

An absolute masterpiece.

Thanks, Woody.

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Writer's Block

When a writer faces that inevitable bugaboo...writer's block...he reviews his life, trying to examine all his mistakes, character flaws and foibles. His examination is depicted in a fragmented fashion, as if he is truly "deconstructing" his self.

As the final picture emerges, he is in a position to address his past, and in doing so, he is freed to write again.

Fascinating portrayal of the creative process.

Woody Redux

Okay, I will admit that finally after almost a year of watching or re-watching films that the comedic legend Woody Allen wrote, directed, played in or produced I am Woody-ed out. Moreover, there is a reason for that beyond fatigue. As I have pointed out previously in this space if one lives long enough and produces enough work then one is bound to repeat oneself. And that is what has happened to brother Allen here.

Allen's premise has been used before as he plays the part of Harry, a writer (what else?) down with a case of writer's block who is also having romantic problems (again, what else?) because the young woman he truly, if belatedly, loves is getting married to a lesser writer. Sound familiar? There are many individually funny moments, mainly by Allen, along the way even if not enough to sustain the film. Naturally, as is usually the case in an Allen feature in the end things are not qualitatively more resolved than at the beginning. Well that, after all, is life.

A nice cinematic touch used here is Harry's (Allen's) sequencing shots to show how autobiographical most novels and short stories really are. Changing the actors in the `real life' story and in the `made up' stories does this well. That part also gets nicely put together at the end. No so nice here, and a bit unusual for an Allen film, is the extensive use of profanity by Allen and the rest of the cast to show their frustrations with the various antics that Harry is up to and in their own lives. Everything is moreover just a bit too frantic, partly to justify the profanity it would seem. That may tell the tale of why I had a problem with this film, as well. If you must see a Woody Allen film you must see Annie Hall or Manhattan, if you have an off hour and one half watch this.

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