Interiors

Plot synopsis:
The film centers around the three children of Arthur (E. G. Marshall), a corporate attorney, and Eve (Geraldine Page), an interior decorator. Renata (Diane Keaton) is a poet whose husband Frederick, a struggling writer, feels eclipsed by her success. Flyn (Kristin Griffith) is a vain actress who is away most of the time filming; the low quality of her films is an object of ridicule behind her back. Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), who is in a relationship with Mike (Sam Waterston), cannot settle on a career, and resents her mother for favoring Renata, while Renata resents their father's concern over Joey's lack of direction.
One morning, Arthur unexpectedly announces that he wants a separation from his wife and would like to live alone. Eve, who is clinically depressed and mentally unstable, attempts suicide. The shock of these two events causes a rift between the sisters. Arthur returns from a trip to Greece with Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), a high-spirited and more "normal" woman, whom he intends to marry. His daughters are disturbed that Arthur would disregard Eve's suicide attempt and find another woman, whom Joey refers to as a "vulgarian".
Arthur and Pearl marry at Arthur and Eve's former summer home, with Renata, Joey and Flyn in attendance. Later in the evening, Joey lashes out at Pearl when Pearl accidentally breaks one of Eve's vases. In the middle of the night, Frederick drunkenly attempts to rape Flyn. Meanwhile, Joey finds Eve in the house, and somberly explains how much she has given up for her mother, and how disdainfully she is treated. Eve walks out onto the beach and into the surf. Joey attempts unsuccessfully to save Eve, but almost herself drowns in the attempt. She in turn is rescued by Mike and brought back to life by Pearl.
The film ends with the family silently attending Eve's funeral, each placing a single white rose, Eve's favourite flower and a symbol of hope to her, on Eve's wooden, perfectly polished coffin.

Tags: depressing

Review:
"Interiors" gets slammed as a forced, awkward, heavy-handed and cheapened imitation of Bergman (most noticeably "Cries and Whispers") and usually discussed in context of "Annie Hall" that preceded it and "Manhattan" that followed.Well, "Annie Hall" was funny as hell and I love "Manhattan" - it's directed with an authority that I don't think was matched in another Woody Allen film ("Crimes and Misdemeanors" had touches of such visual elegance).
Like the multi-character "Hannah and Her Sisters" or the parallelism of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" the stories, relationships and situations rise and build naturally."Interiors" is, essentially, the story of an upper-class family shattered, if not exposed and tested, by the divorce of the parents and the ensuing collapse of the mother.
It does so by not exposing its themes through "situations" (like Woody Allen finding out that he might be dying in "Hannah and her Sisters" and attempting suicide), but rather through realistic psychological observation of familial relations - particularly mother-daughter ones.Like many Bergman films, "Interiors" is psychological to the core, even though I don't recall a single shrink in the film.
"Interiors" is the American film version of early-20th century European theatrical drama - the problems of the well-off, upper-class families not being able to survive social, emotional and psychological instability that they themselves contributed to creating.
It is fair, I suppose, to say that Allen really has succeeded, but not in the remarkable ways he had succeeded so clearly in his earlier films, including his previous nugget, "Annie Hall," which is in my view his first true drama, but which has the benefit of also being funny.Or you can just sit back and take it in for what it does do so well, letting the interior lives of these people seem as shattered and pathetic as they really seem.
Its pace and "tastefulness" of the photography almost seems designed by one of the main characters, the troubled interior decorator mother played with uncanny effectiveness by Geraldine Page.Expect nothing in particular here except a tour-de-force that works on its own depressing terms..
It is very easy to see why people wouldn't like it with how bleak it is and how it's different from much of what Allen has done, but those are hardly reasons to dismiss Interiors because apart from the occasional rambling it is a great film.
Diane Keaton when it comes to Woody Allen films is better in Annie Hall and Manhattan but plays a purposefully shrill character with gusto.
Bergmanesque drama from writer-director Woody Allen, who does not appear or even feel present (Pauline Kael of the New Yorker claims his neuroses have been transposed to the mother-character, but I never felt like I was watching something created by Woody Allen).
It has been an easy observation &/or criticism of Interiors, Woody Allen's first break from acting and comedy as a filmmaker, is an homage of the bleak, spellbinding films of despair of Ingmar Bergman's films.
"Look," the boyfriend's mother remarks, "The shiksa's baked us a Presbyterian Pie!" Ladies and Gents, this is Woody Allen's Presbyterian Pie. In Interiors, we see (but only through his direction, for once) Allen on stilts attempting to reach the stature of a truly great director, Ingmar Bergman.
I would suggest that not only has this character lost her life-it seems to have been stolen from her in some mysterious way by her husband and daughters-but the character itself, down to mannerisms and hairstyle, is simply a late Bibi Andersson impersonation, and as such is enough to throw even the most avid student of films into a tailspin, since the character doesn't derive so much from the plot, such as it is, as from the director/writer's idea of what a Bergmanesque matriarch should look and sound like.
"Interiors" (1978)  is the first Woody Allen's attempt to create a straight drama film after the series of hilarious comedies ("Bananas", "Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask", "Sleeper") and one of his most famous dramedies, "Annie Hall".
Arthur (E.G. Marshall), the husband of a Long Island interior designer Eve (Geraldine Page), demanding and imperious, and father of their three grown daughters (Diane Keaton, Marybeth Hurt and Kristin Griffith), informs his wife that he wanted a trial separation.
I respect Allen's homage to Bergman's work but I think he is much more interesting when he combines drama and comedy in his films.
It's pretty obvious that Woody Allen was so resistant in being confined as a comedy filmmaker that in the throes of his success with the wondrous "Annie Hall", he felt a need to make an über-serious drama in the Ingmar Bergman mode.
He has obviously since learned that his best films ("Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters") are served most by his particular balance between comedy and drama.The story concerns an upscale New York family reacting to the news that patriarch Arthur wants to leave his psychologically unstable wife Eve just released from a sanitarium.
Youngest daughter Flyn is the beautiful, emotionally isolated one who moved to Hollywood to become a semi-successful actress.They all respond to their mother Eve's neediness in different ways, and the inevitable turning point comes when Arthur finalizes the divorce and remarries, this time to a passionate, fun-loving widow named Pearl.
Diane Keaton; E.G. Marshall; Sam Waterston; Richard Jordan and Kristin Griffith are equally great.When I get down on myself and question my intellect, thinking of my appreciation of 'Interiors', reminds me of my own potential and love of the cinema.
Having not cast himself in the movie, he has poor Mary Beth Hurt copy all of his thespian tics, intonations, and neurotic habits, turning her into an embarrassing surrogate (much like Kenneth Branagh in "Celebrity").The basic plot - dysfunctional family with quietly domineering mother - seems to be lifted more or less from Bergman's "Winter Light," the basic family melodrama tricked up with a lot of existential angst.
Woody Allen's heavy- handed "drama" comes off like a satire of an Ingmar Bergman film.
He followed it up with Interiors, a dark, melodramatic film with virtually no comedy without Woody Allen in front of the camera.
For any person exploring Woody Allen's filmography right from the beginning, 'Interiors' when it appears, will always prove to be a very intriguing and peculiar film to confront and examine as it is so very different from anything that comes before it.
The existential Bergman-esque themes of silence of God, meaning of life are things that Allen has also always been interested in.In 'Interiors', as the name foreshadows, Allen stages 95% of the scenes in the confines of the rooms of the characters' homes.
The Bergman-esque technique found in films like 'Autumn Sonata' or 'Cries and Whispers' of allowing the suffocating confines of the interiors to gradually propel the repressed inner struggles of the involved characters to the surface inevitably leading to an emotional explosion is used by Allen in this film.
He manages to create a unique cinematic vibe by internalising the austerity of Bergman and blending them with his own sensibilities by creating characters that feel very much like the New York upper class intellectual individuals that many of his films have explored.
This is because in trying to juggle with the sensibilities of so many characters, the film in the end somewhat forgets, abandons and leaves by the wayside, some of the issues in the lives of these characters which were raised and given importance to previously in the narrative,leading to a sense of incompleteness due to lack of closure.The camera doesn't do anything extra-ordinary except for one or two extended sideways tracking shots because Allen deliberately allows the scenes and the dialogue to flow.
I think what Woody Allen was doing, as was the case in Manhattan, was giving us a glimpse into that sort of liberal elitist upper crest society, where these characters in particular are pseudo-intellectuals and wannabe artists, who create their own problems that really don't mean anything.This would explain the introduction of Pearl, the fathers new fiancé.
On top of that, she was a successful interior designer, and her 3 daughters are all "artsy" intellectuals...and you can see why a character like the father is just overwhelmed with them all, and falls in love with a very grounded, relatively simple woman, Pearl.I think it was Woodys purpose to make you feel burdened or overwhelmed by the characters, the mother...hell, almost feel completely alienated, only to suddenly find yourself relating to Pearl when she arrives.Another scene that kind of highlights the pretentiousness of the characters, one of the girls husbands is speaking into a tape recorder about marxism and communism, hinting that he is a supporter of such ideology.
We have Joel Schumacher as the costume designer (before his years as director) and something that amounts to a Bergmanesque family drama, though without the full Scandinavian despair.Vincent Canby wrote, "My problem with Interiors is that although I admire the performances and isolated moments, as well as the techniques and the sheer, headlong courage of this great, comic, film-making philosopher, I haven't any real idea what the film is up to." The criticism aside, Canby calls Allen out for being heavy on the philosophy references, with the dense writing of Allen that he is known for and makes his films his own.
Interiors is Woody Allen's first straight drama, and while most compare the film to Ingmar Bergman (one of Allen's favorite directors), the film's examination of a dysfunctional family struggling for normalcy is a forerunner to such '80s films as Ordinary People and Shoot the Moon, and acclaimed '90s films The Ice Storm, Happiness and American Beauty.
The film focuses on three sisters (not the first time Woody Allen would do this), and their reaction to their parents' sudden divorce and then their father's affair with a less glamorous, but very REAL, woman.Maureen Stapleton plays the new woman and has what I feel is the most heartbreaking scene in the movie.
The movie is mostly memorable as Woody's first serious foray into drama, and two amazing performances by the best there is or ever was - Geraldine Page and Maureen Stapleton.
Able to bring focus to the lives of each character in his film, Woody Allen brings himself even closer to my heart than I ever thought possible.Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), and Flyn (Kristin Griffith) are three sisters in a dysfunctional family trying to navigate through the troubles of their own lives while also attempting to keep the peace in their parents' lives, as well.
Dramatic possibilities are missed by not having Ms. Page and Ms. Stapleton share some explosive, confrontational screen time.******* Interiors (1978) Woody Allen ~ Geraldine Page, Diane Keaton, Maureen Stapleton.
In a huge departure for Allen at the time, who had gone from slapstick to urban comedy, he makes an Ingmar Bergman film, and a fairly good one at that.The acting is first-rate, especially Paige.
GERALDINE PAGE is the mother and she's magnificent as the troubled, perfectionist mother--but whether you connect with the story will depend on acceptance of this sort of grim material from Woody Allen, of all people.The film is well titled "Interiors" because much of the script gives internal monologues to various characters, most particularly DIANE KEATON as a writer with conflicted feelings about her mother and her illness and a disintegrating marriage to RICHARD JORDAN.
Diane Keaton and Kristin Griffith are remarkable in their understated roles as two sisters struggling for affection and success.'Interiors' is Allen's quietest film and it very psychological in nature.
"You only live once, and once is enough if you play your cards right" (Pearl / Maureen Stapleton)Interiors was Woody Allen's first drama.
Woody Allen offered the role to Ingrid but she had to decline it because she was already committed to shoot Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) with Ingmar Bergman.There is no music in the film (with the exception of the two pieces played in the scene where everybody but Joey and Renata are dancing and the tacky Pearl breaks the vase).The best: Geraldine Page and Maureen Stapleton.The worst: Renata's weird and "fake" motherhood.
The high points are Gordon Willis's beautiful cinematography that gives the film the roots of its inherent emotion, and the cast is riveting and very much in tune, especially the haunting Geraldine Page, fascinating Diane Keaton whose presence never fails, the very convincingly unaware performance of Maureen Stapleton, Mary Beth Hurt who plays her character's angrily repressed realist with a tremendous personal correspondence that sparks her performance, and the becomingly frustrating Richard Jordan.However, the film is a mystery in an unfulfilling way.
Best character studies in any Woody Allen film.
Describing our Insides Out. Woody Allen succeeds in his imitation of an Ingmar Bergman film with "Interiors."Imagine poor E.G. Marshall.
Diane Keaton is also good, as Renate, and Mary Beth Hurt, who I loved in this movie (I did not like her in "The World According to Garp"; too predictable) she is so much better when given real roles.Maureen Stapleton portrays the new wife, as E.G. Marshall says:..." I'm 69 years old....for God sakes I want to have some fun"...
Interiors is definitely not a funny film, but Allen still manages to make it work courtesy of some good writing and a ensemble of great actors which give life to the characters in his bergmanesque view of a family torn apart by the parents' divorce.
This has the hardest effect on the mother, who is still in love with the father and is afraid of being left alone, but also feeling the strain are the couple's three grown up daughters.The acting is great, and Allen's stalwart muse Diane Keaton stands out the most among them.
Some claim that "Interiors" is sensational proof that Woody Allen is as comfortable directing stark drama as he is intellectual comedies; others say it's nothing more than a cheap imitation of Ingmar Bergman, a film class exercise.
She doesn't have a very large role, so her part of the story isn't a huge detriment to the film, but it could have been handled much better.Overall though, "Interiors" is a very good movie and deserves to be seen not simply as an homage to Bergman, or as a noble effort from a beloved director, but on its own merits as a powerful family drama.Grade: A-.
The three sisters clash and their father returns from Greece with new girlfriend Pearl (Maureen Stapleton).Woody Allen is doing Ingmar Bergman in an artistic family drama.
After the wonderful comedic work of Annie Hall, his Interiors is a delicately observed exploration of a trio of sisters who are impacted deeply by their mother.It's true that he takes a lot of inspiration from Ingmar Bergman in his style here, but it also has that unique touch that only Woody can give a film.
Allen made some very interesting choices in casting the film, combining regulars of his such as Diane Keaton with newcomers like Mary Beth Hurt and heavy dramatic hitters like E.G. Marshall and Geraldine Page, but the end result is a fluid and fully realized portrait of this family.
Interiors is surely one of Woody Allen's best films and such a strong departure for him as a filmmaker.
It's not easy to compare Interiors to other Woody Allen films because it has so little in common with them, especially with his early work (other than Diane Keaton, obviously); which is why a lot of people refer to it as a 'bridge' between Annie Hall and Manhattan.
Even when the script turns needlessly brainy in a way that makes the dialog feel unrealistic, every scene is shot beautifully - more beautifully than any Allen film before, and in that way the bridge to Manhattan is important - and the acting is so fantastic that the dialog somehow works, most of all Geraldine Page in one of the last and best performances in her career.Interiors is essential to Allen fans, and not just for biographical context, though they may be disappointed by not finding any of his trademarks.
The standouts are Diane Keaton as the eldest, a successful poet who can't find the meaning and purpose in her own work, Geraldine Page as the mother who keeps up a positive and hopeful facade but truly lacks almost any kind of hope, and Maureen Stapleton as a lively, energetic and honest type who invades the family by way of the father and tries to fit in but can't seem to do so.I have already praised the film for being brilliant, but I feel its brilliance lies in Allen's ability not only to reinvent himself as a writer and director but also to tackle material that has been covered so many times before and still put a fresh spin on it.
I'm not sure if I would call "Interiors" the finest film of Woody Allen's career.
Eve becomes unstable and suicidal, and the couple's three grown daughters-Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Marybeth Hurt), and Flynn (Kristin Griffith)-must deal with this radical life change in their own ways.Interiors, like Woody Allen's subsequent (and extraordinary) dramas, is not a plot driven film.
"Interiors" is a truly remarkable film, that is one of Woody Allen's best..
Woody Allen assembled one of the most brilliant casts ever for his first serious film, "Interiors," made in 1978.
This was GREAT acting.The story concerns basically two young women, Renata (Diane Keaton) and Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), who must cope with the separation and ultimate divorce of their parents Arthur and Eve (Geraldine Page and E.G. Marshall), their mother's emotional and mental instability, and their father's remarriage to a very different woman (Maureen Stapleton).
In his dramatic directorial debut, Woody Allen comes away quite nicely with this story of three sisters (Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt and Kristen Griffith) whose lives take very different turns, due largely in part to the separation of their parents (E.G. Marshall and Geraldine Page) and their mother's subsequent dependency on them, esp.