Poor little rich girl takes revenge on her philandering husband with tenor saxophone player.It might have been more gripping if the tenor player had been Archie Shepp but no,it's that safe but rather boring Joe Mantegna. Alice is so rich that my sympathy for her is strictly limited,unlike Miss Farrow's not dissimilar role in the superior "Purple Rose of Cairo" where her options were far more restricted. Her husband is a pompous ass,but physical violence is not on his agenda. Advised by her equally rich but emotionally impoverished friends to visit the mysterious Dr Yang,she takes his magic powders and becomes what she wants to be rather than what she actually is.Miss Farrow's steely determination shows through her fragile exterior.Once she decides she seriously wants Joe she sets out to get him - no error. Blink and you'll miss the great Judy Davis in an appearance so brief as to be almost Hitchcockian. Eventually she ditches the tenor player and goes off to help Mother Teresa (the way you do). The music,as is often the case in his films,is sublime,the photography sumptuous and spartan by turns.I just can't work up a lot of enthusiasm for the project as a whole,which is a pity ,but it promises a lot more than it produces.
Review of Alice
