"Alice" suffers from an undramatic storyline. There is drama alright, but it is immediately sugarcoated. So this movie wanders a bit between wanting to be a comedy (without great jokes, bummer) and wanting to be dramatic, but served with too much sugar on top. It is still charming, acting is great, soundtrack is lovely. It is still a lovely Woody Allen film, but the sum total just falls flat. The mood of this picture is almost identical to the boring life style Alice is leading. She has got everything she could desire for moneywise, but she feels unfulfilled. She visits a chinese doctor who prescribes for her a special herbal medicine, which makes her invisible. Yes, that sounds silly. It is silly, but this is suppose to be the fun part. And although being invisible triggers some jokes, it becomes somewhat childish too after the first gimmick of being invisible has worn off. However new opportunities open up with these invisible making chinese medicine. Her life becomes adventurous again. But not without having to face some losses too...As I said at the very start. This movie just doesnt reach the quality of Woody Allen's earlier work. There are much better dramatic and funny pictures of Woody Allen to be found. Watch "Hannah and her Sisters" for a much better drama about marital betrayal. Watch " Purple Rose of Cairo" for a much better romantic comedy. And dont forget about some other classics that you must give a try because director and writer Woody Allen has made such a wonderful line of work. Really anything from the eighties down to the seventies is worth watching. Halfway through the nineties Woody Allen lost some of his magic touch that sparkled so brightly in his older work. "Alice" is still a charming picture. More senior older people who are first time viewers will surely enjoy this movie. But for younger people who long for more romance or comedy or long for more true to life drama there are a lot of much better Woody Allen films out there.

Made right after one of Woody Allen's most celebrated films, "Crimes And Misdemeanors", "Alice" seems to be one of the forgotten entries in his filmography. In both of these films, Allen effortlessly walks a fine line between drama and comedy, and although "Alice" appears to be a smaller, simpler film compared to "Crimes", the viewer gradually realizes that the central dilemma - will Mia Farrow cheat on her husband or not ? - is just a pretext: the film seamlessly blends reality with fantasy (the fantasy touches are creative, though not unprecedented in Allen's cinema: see, for example, "Play It Again, Sam" or "The Purple Rose Of Cairo"), and the present with the past, to paint the portrait of a woman at a crossroads in her life. And who better to play that woman than Mia Farrow, who does "mousiness" to sweet perfection? Many other fine actors appear as well; William Hurt is kind of boring as the husband - but that's the point! Blythe Danner shines as Mia's sister. Only the ending becomes a little too preachy. *** out of 4.

Mia Farrow is "Alice" in this 1990 Woody Allen film. Here, Allen borrows from "Juliet of the Spirits" and "Alice in Wonderland" to make a delightful movie about an unhappy woman trying to find herself.Alice (Farrow) married a wealthy man (William Hurt) and gave up a career in fashion. She has everything - a gorgeous New York apartment, two children, and servants. She spends her time shopping and having beauty treatments. At her kids' school, she meets a man (Joe Mantegna) and is shocked to realize that she's attracted to him. When she goes to a Dr. Yang (Keye Luke) for a back problem, Dr. Yang sees right away that Alice's pain is psychological. He gives her an herb to take.The herb has an amazing effect on Alice, who then openly flirts with the object of her affection, Joe. Dr. Yang keeps hitting Alice up with potions: one makes her invisible, so she can watch Joe with his psychiatrist ex-wife (Judy Davis); another reunites her with the ghost of her first love (Alec Baldwin). Alice and Joe finally get together. But one of the potions helps her to find something out that she not only didn't know, but that changes her life.Mia Farrow does a good job as Alice; in my opinion, other than "Rosemary's Baby," she did her best work with Allen. The rest of the cast is good and sail through this film about self-discovery, unrealized goals, and passion. An unsung film of Allen's that deserves more attention.

While Brian De Palma was in his part of the Park Avenue section of Manhattan making the curious disaster that was Bonfire of the Vanities, Woody Allen was in his section making something of a lighter story, satirical but less barbed and not quite as outrageous. It's about an upper-class housewife who has pretty much anything she could want, and is pampered: high-rise apartment, high-paid massages and clothes and jewelry and whatever, but she also has a boring husband and a back that is aching. So she's sent to a sort of mystical Chinese doctor who gives her a hypnotizing trick, and starts to give her herbs. This spurs on a different way of thinking, or, at least, an affair with a musician, and she also revisits painful memories of her past: a broken relationship with her older sister, and a her former lover who died when she was younger.The film addresses an interest that can be found in many of Allen's films, something one wouldn't expect from a filmmaker usually associated with therapist couches and satire on neurotics and intellectual New Yorkers, which is magic. One saw it in Purple Rose of Cairo, and one sees it here manifested in a fable structure. Alice (a charming and sometimes affecting Mia Farrow) has to change by her own accord, but is assisted by these 'herbs' that make her invisible, see her dead lover (Alec Baldwin in a great supporting role) in the same room with her, fly high in the sky, and speak with her sister at their old family home in her mind (whether that part is from the opium, if it even is opium, is hard to say), and a potion that will make any men fall desperately in love with her, which makes for the climax of the picture.Meanwhile, she tries to find herself, her creative spirit as a writer (if it's even there) and a possible lover in musician Joe Mantagna plays. There's some whimsy that Allen is dealing with here, and some intentionally obvious cinematic tricks (a spotlight on Baldwin, the choice in the music like out of a 40's escapist movie, the use of red tint when Alice is being hypnotized), but there's also a smart-serious undercurrent for Alice as a character. What will she do with herself? Will she stay with her husband in a complacent existence, or go with Joe, who may have his heart elsewhere? The resolution to this all is the kind of ending that wouldn't usually come in a fairy tale (I suspect it may have been inspired by Farrow herself, and her dedication to helping out third-world poverty-stricken children). But the film is satisfying as something light and fluffy, some satire of the rich and their petty concerns thrown in, and some existential 'Woody' angst thrown in for good measure.It's not a major work by any means, and I think Allen is content with it that way. It's also a fine showcase for Farrow (what films in the 80's weren't, i.e. Broadway Danny Rose) and her skills as a comedienne and as a serious actor, in equal measure.