"Alice" can be seen as Woody Allen's version of magic realism. It makes use of magic, but does so not in the context of myth, fairy-tale or fantasy but in the context of contemporary real-life America. The title character, Alice Tate, is an upper-middle-class New York housewife. Alice is married with two children, but her marriage is not a happy one. Her husband Doug is wealthy and good-looking, but cold, dull and unresponsive to her needs.
The film explores what happens two strangers come into Alice's life. The first is Joe Ruffalo, a handsome musician to whom she finds herself attracted. The second is the mysterious Chinese herbalist Dr Yang, who is treating her for backache. Dr Yang prescribes a series of herbal treatments for her, but it is clear that these are much more than just backache remedies. Indeed, these herbs have magical properties. One type takes away her inhibitions and make her act on her feelings towards Joe; another type makes her invisible, enabling her to watch both Joe and Doug unseen. A third enables her to communicate with the ghost of her now deceased first lover Ed.
The film is very different in its overall tone to Woody's previous offering, "Crimes and Misdemeanours" made a year earlier. Yet there is also a similarity between the two films. "Alice" can be seen as continuing the debate about religion which began in the earlier film, Given that Woody is normally thought of as a religious sceptic, "Crimes and Misdemeanours" came as something of a surprise to me with its positive view of religion, especially the sympathetic view taken of Sam Waterston's Rabbi, a man whose religious faith enables him to bear the prospect of blindness with stoicism. Although physically he is losing his sight, morally he can see more clearly than any other character in that film.
In "Alice" the religious debate takes place in the context of Catholicism rather than Judaism. Although she no longer practises her religion, Alice was raised as a Catholic. (As was Mia Farrow who plays her; Mia's original name was the very Catholic Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow). The film's view of Catholicism is a mixed one. One the one hand, Alice's Catholic upbringing is seen as a source of sexual guilt. On the other hand, Catholicism is also seen as a source of humanitarian idealism. As a girl and young woman, Alice's was to help people like Mother Theresa, whom she greatly admired. As a middle-aged married woman she has lost sight of her idealistic goals and leads a luxurious, materialistic lifestyle, dominated by shopping, beauty treatments and gossip. Religion can therefore be seen as being the partial cause of Alice's problems in that it causes her to feel guilty about her feelings for Joe. (There is a suggestion that her backache is psychosomatically linked to these guilt feelings). It can, however, also be seen as part of the solution to those problems, as she eventually rediscovers her earlier idealism.
Another link between this film and "Crimes and Misdemeanours" lies in their colour schemes. In the earlier film the predominant colours were browns, greys and dull yellows and oranges. Here similar colours predominate, except that they are also relieved by brighter oranges and reds. This may have been intended to symbolise the difference in tone between the two films. "Crimes .." is one of Woody's darker films, combining humorous and serious stories, although even the humour is often of a dark, cynical nature. "Alice", by contrast, is generally lighter and more playful, a comedy raising serious issues as opposed to a serious film lightened by humour.
Magical realism in the cinema is not always successful; "Practical Magic", for example, which likewise tried to introduce magical elements into a modern-day realistic setting, is a hopeless mess of a film, one of my least-favourite movies of the nineties. "Alice" is a considerably better film than "Practical Magic"- it would be difficult to be worse- but I nevertheless got the feeling that Woody was never entirely happy with his supernatural subject-matter and does not handle it as deftly as he did in, for example, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", another film of his which includes fantasy elements. Although this is not her best collaboration with Allen- that was probably "Hannah and Her Sisters"- Mia Farrow makes a likable heroine and there are also good performances from Alec Baldwin as the ghostly Ed and William Hurt as Doug. Overall, this is a generally enjoyable film, with some amusing scenes, but it does not really count as one of Allen's great works. 6/10
The film explores what happens two strangers come into Alice's life. The first is Joe Ruffalo, a handsome musician to whom she finds herself attracted. The second is the mysterious Chinese herbalist Dr Yang, who is treating her for backache. Dr Yang prescribes a series of herbal treatments for her, but it is clear that these are much more than just backache remedies. Indeed, these herbs have magical properties. One type takes away her inhibitions and make her act on her feelings towards Joe; another type makes her invisible, enabling her to watch both Joe and Doug unseen. A third enables her to communicate with the ghost of her now deceased first lover Ed.
The film is very different in its overall tone to Woody's previous offering, "Crimes and Misdemeanours" made a year earlier. Yet there is also a similarity between the two films. "Alice" can be seen as continuing the debate about religion which began in the earlier film, Given that Woody is normally thought of as a religious sceptic, "Crimes and Misdemeanours" came as something of a surprise to me with its positive view of religion, especially the sympathetic view taken of Sam Waterston's Rabbi, a man whose religious faith enables him to bear the prospect of blindness with stoicism. Although physically he is losing his sight, morally he can see more clearly than any other character in that film.
In "Alice" the religious debate takes place in the context of Catholicism rather than Judaism. Although she no longer practises her religion, Alice was raised as a Catholic. (As was Mia Farrow who plays her; Mia's original name was the very Catholic Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow). The film's view of Catholicism is a mixed one. One the one hand, Alice's Catholic upbringing is seen as a source of sexual guilt. On the other hand, Catholicism is also seen as a source of humanitarian idealism. As a girl and young woman, Alice's was to help people like Mother Theresa, whom she greatly admired. As a middle-aged married woman she has lost sight of her idealistic goals and leads a luxurious, materialistic lifestyle, dominated by shopping, beauty treatments and gossip. Religion can therefore be seen as being the partial cause of Alice's problems in that it causes her to feel guilty about her feelings for Joe. (There is a suggestion that her backache is psychosomatically linked to these guilt feelings). It can, however, also be seen as part of the solution to those problems, as she eventually rediscovers her earlier idealism.
Another link between this film and "Crimes and Misdemeanours" lies in their colour schemes. In the earlier film the predominant colours were browns, greys and dull yellows and oranges. Here similar colours predominate, except that they are also relieved by brighter oranges and reds. This may have been intended to symbolise the difference in tone between the two films. "Crimes .." is one of Woody's darker films, combining humorous and serious stories, although even the humour is often of a dark, cynical nature. "Alice", by contrast, is generally lighter and more playful, a comedy raising serious issues as opposed to a serious film lightened by humour.
Magical realism in the cinema is not always successful; "Practical Magic", for example, which likewise tried to introduce magical elements into a modern-day realistic setting, is a hopeless mess of a film, one of my least-favourite movies of the nineties. "Alice" is a considerably better film than "Practical Magic"- it would be difficult to be worse- but I nevertheless got the feeling that Woody was never entirely happy with his supernatural subject-matter and does not handle it as deftly as he did in, for example, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", another film of his which includes fantasy elements. Although this is not her best collaboration with Allen- that was probably "Hannah and Her Sisters"- Mia Farrow makes a likable heroine and there are also good performances from Alec Baldwin as the ghostly Ed and William Hurt as Doug. Overall, this is a generally enjoyable film, with some amusing scenes, but it does not really count as one of Allen's great works. 6/10