Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Sam Waterston, Elaine Stritch, Denholm Elliott, and Jack Warden make up the cast of Woody Allen's dramatic film September. If you've only seen Woody Allen's comedies, you'll be very surprised by how heavy he can get.Elaine Stritch plays Mia and Dianne's mother, and they make up a typically dysfunctional family, with lots of secrets, resentments, betrayals, and unfortunate love that binds them all together. Mia falls in love with Sam, but Sam becomes infatuated with her sister instead, adding more tension to the mix. The acting in this movie is pretty incredible, but, as is sometimes the case with heavy dramas, it can be tough to watch. This probably won't end up being your favorite movie, but at the very least you'll be able to appreciate the performances. If you're a fan of any of the actors, add this one to your list.

Even the most wooden and lifeless Woody Allen film is full of brilliant writing leaving me little to complain about. September by far the most under-whelming of Allen's films I've seen during this retrospective project yet I can easily pull a dozen quote-worthy lines from the film. The 1987 feature of Woody Allen seemed came off uninspired and under- directed. Still, though, Allen addresses a myriad of emotion lying deep below the surface of the individuals involved. Like many Woody Allen films, September involves relationships with partner switching and a healthy dose of heartbreak. September doesn't seem sure what it wants to be about, or if it is sure, its execution is off. What it is sure of is how to subtly convey guarded emotions in a truly beautiful way. That scene closing out the film with the pan of the home and all the memories it contained was simply beautiful.

This is the film that Woody Allen notoriously shot and then scrapped, re-wrote, re-cast and re-shot, and was reportedly keen to do it a third time. But to be honest, I really wish he'd just left it scrapped. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Allen fan, and would sit down to watch anything by him, comedy or drama, and on top of that, I'm also a fan of Ingmar Bergman, whom Allen admires greatly and has obviously taken huge inspiration from for September, most notably his film Autumn Sonata. I also have great respect for Woody's constant desire to do his own thing, his desire to never get caught up in the demands of mainstream, money-making Hollywood, and his determination to always be different. But in this case, his desire to be different hinders September totally, and what could have been a thoughtful and original psychological drama ends up being a desperate attempt by Allen to be as bleak and "different" as possible, and is unnecessarily tedious and condescending.The story is simple. A group of six people, (in my opinion some of the most boring characters ever assembled), gather together one summer at a country house. From there on in, there is lifeless and at times pointless drama between the characters as they all deal with love and evaluating their lives, each one more annoying than the last, completely lacking any power or conviction.The concept of the film is fascinating, and suits a filmmaker like Allen, who focuses primarily on characters and their thoughts and feelings above all else, particularly in his dramas, down to the ground. The film is a chamber piece, that is, it focuses on a very small number of characters in the one setting from start to finish. Also, Allen's main idea is to film in the style of a play as much as possible, using long, un-broken shots and keeping any unnecessary camera movements like close-ups to a minimum. The fusion of these two mediums is an extremely interesting idea, and is appropriate for the material. So far, so interesting. But unfortunately, that still leaves the rest of the film to look at.Pretension is the word of the day in September, and as interesting as its premise is, everything else about it feels forcedly unglamorous and so unnecessarily bland, almost as if Allen was curious as to just how independent and how anti-Hollywood he could make a film. But as great an idea as that sounds, there's a huge difference between making a film that's genuinely different and non-mainstream, and making a film that's just trying to be different for the sake of being different and rubbing it in the faces of mainstream films and film-watchers everywhere, and to me that's all September is. Nothing feels natural about this film, and it doesn't feel like it was made to be good, it just seems like Allen's attempt to be as different and as "indie" as possible, with no effort at actually making it good.What doesn't help is that an experienced and talented cast turn in drab and lifeless performances, though one of the main reasons for this is that they all find themselves stuck with boring, one-dimensional and frankly whiny characters that spend the entire film upset or sad about their lives, but lacking any real emotional depth or personality, instead just doing it because Allen wants the film to be as bleak and dramatic as possible. Taking the lead role, Mia Farrow as Lane begins as probably the most human of all the characters, and the one that seems most real, but by the end has become the most boring and whiny of them all, with a pretty lacklustre performance. Sam Waterston as Peter is diabolical, delivering a totally flat and ridiculously wooden performance, almost like an acting student performing in front of his peers for the first time. On a par with Waterston's awful performance is that of Dianne Wiest as Stephanie who is about as interesting and emotionally engaging as a doorknob, and whose story of her failing marriage is as short on depth and insightfulness as her head is of hair.Luckily there are a few worthwhile performances, notably Denholm Elliott who gives a very interesting and subtle performance as Howard, the man in love with Lane, who is one of the only characters with any real appeal or feeling in the whole film, but who unfortunately is barely used. Another god performance comes from Elaine Stritch as Lane's mother Diane, who although gives a convincing and at times genuinely emotionally engrossing performance, is also saddled with an uninteresting and unengaging character. Strong support comes also from Jack Warner as Lane's stepfather Lloyd, an enjoyable and interesting character with intelligent and intriguing insights into life.As regards the poor performances, it would be unfair to say that it's totally the actors' fault, as they were dealing with a director who was after nothing more than ponderous melodrama and banal story-telling, and although conceived an unusual and interesting idea, was incapable of avoiding pretentiousness and one-dimension. Woody Allen has been responsible for many intelligent, engaging and extremely moving films. Go and watch those instead, as this is not one of them.

The plot of Racine's "Andromaque" has been described as "A loves B, who loves C, who loves D, who loves E, who is dead". I wondered if this was an influence on the plot of "September", which features a scarcely less complicated string of unrequited love interests. Howard is in love with Lane, who is in love with Peter, who is in love with Stephanie, who is not sure whether she is in love with Peter or not. Lane is the owner of the New England country house in which the action takes place (obviously enough during the month of September). Howard, a teacher, and Peter, a struggling writer, are neighbours. Stephanie is Lane's best friend. To add to the confusion, Stephanie is married, although her husband does not appear. Two other important characters are Lane's mother Diane and her stepfather Lloyd."September" may have been written and directed by Woody Allen, but it is not what we have come to think of as a Woody Allen film. For a start it is not a comedy, or even a tragi-comedy like "Melinda and Melinda" or "Crimes and Misdemeanours", both of which combine a serious story with a humorous one. It is quite deliberately made as a deeply serious film, unrelieved by humour. As in a number of Allen's films from this period, such as "Crimes and Misdemeanours" or "Alice", the predominant colours- browns, greys and dull yellows and oranges- are dark or sombre ones. The best way I can describe it is a play written by a would-be Chekhov adapted for the screen by a would-be Ingmar Bergman.Indeed, Allen described it as "a play on film", and it certainly comes across like a piece of filmed theatre, set entirely indoors with a great number of long takes and few close-ups. Unfortunately, it shows just how dull and boring this style of film-making can be at its worst. There is no action, no sense of movement or character development, just a group of unsympathetic individuals interminably talking over their emotional problems. It might only last for eighty minutes; it felt more like eight hundred.Mia Farrow gave some wonderful performances during her association with Woody, but here she as Lane and Dianne Wiest as Stephanie seem to be competing as to which of them can seem more whiny and miserable. Nobody seems to have told Elaine Stritch that this was supposed to be a serious drama rather than a comedy, as she plays Diane as an over-the-top comic caricature. The male half of the cast are rather better, but none of them are outstanding and Sam Waterston as Peter is nowhere near as good as he was to be in "Crimes and Misdemeanours". Allen actually shot the film twice, replacing several cast members for the second version. Diane was originally played Maureen O'Sullivan (Farrow's real-life mother), Howard by Charles Durning and Waterston was only the third choice for Peter after Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard. I wonder what was so bad about the original version.During the course of the film, we learn that Diane was once a well-known actress, and that many years ago Lane, then a teenager, was supposed to have shot dead Diane's abusive boyfriend. I found myself wondering why Allen did not base his film around this incident, which would surely have made for a more dramatic film that the one he actually made. The reason is presumably that this detail was plagiarised from the life of Lana Turner, whose boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was indeed killed by her daughter Cheryl in self defence, and as Lana was still alive in 1987 too much attention to the incident could have resulted in a writ from her lawyers. As Diane is a hard, brassy, self-centred individual, I also wondered if the use of this particular Christian name was a spiteful dig at Diane Keaton, Farrow's predecessor as Woody's muse.What makes the film even more disappointing is that it came out during a period, the late eighties, which also saw three of Woody's best films, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdemeanours". If one judges solely on the basis of a lack of jokes, "September" is more "serious" than any of these films, which all contain a good deal of humour. On the basis of intellectual depth, however, it is the least serious of the four. The other three films all broach weighty philosophical topics, but do so with intelligence, wit and style to produce something of far more interest than the emotional angst and lovesickness which lie at the heart of "September". The nearest it gets to intellectual depth is Lloyd's attempt to use the laws of physics to prove that life is pointless. Woody should do what he does best, not try to be Chekhov or Bergman. And certainly not Einstein.When I reviewed "Melinda and Melinda" I wrote that none of Woody Allen's films are entirely without interest. I had obviously forgotten "September". But then it is an entirely forgettable movie. The song exhorts us to "Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow". This "September" may be slow but it is far from mellow. The kind not worth remembering. 4/10