Crimes and Misdemeanors

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Along with Deconstructing Harry which would follow seven years later, this is Woody Allen's most somber comedy-drama, as well as his most ambitious film of the 1980s. Allen weaves together two central stories about very different groups of Manhattanites, linking them through a mutual friend, a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who's going blind. This image is key to the sometimes ponderous, often clever musings on faith, morals, and vision (or lack thereof) that obsess his deeply troubled and unhappy characters. At its center, the film explores people who, through lack of religious conviction or arrogance, rationalize their awful, selfish acts by presuming that God couldn't possibly be watching. The central story--a neo-noir of sorts--follows a fortuitous ophthalmologist (Martin Landau, all sweat and grimaces) who faces the prospect of his obsessed mistress (Anjelica Huston) ruining his life by telling his family of their affair. Desperate, the doctor hires his slimy criminal brother (Jerry Orbach) to eliminate the situation, and then suffers overwhelming regret afterwards. The flip tale is more typical Allen. Funnier and lighter, it focuses on an impossible romance between Allen's character and Halley Reed, a film producer played by Mia Farrow. Between Allen and his Hollywood fantasy stands his brother-in-law (Alan Alda, perfectly cast as an obnoxious, successful sitcom producer), who also desires Halley. Allen is Landau's opposite: an honest, struggling documentarian who cares nothing about fortune, suffers in a loveless marriage, and is surrounded by triumphant phonies. The nice-guys-finish-last moral may be as contrived as it is devastating. Yet, when Landau and Allen finally share a final scene during a wedding, their faces, subtle body movements, and contrasting fortunes somehow suggest that indeed God may be blind, and if not, the deity has a very sick sense of humor. --Dave McCoy

Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director(s): Woody Allen
Production: Orion Pictures Corporation
  Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 16 wins & 21 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.0
Metacritic:
77
Rotten Tomatoes:
93%
PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Year:
1989
104
2,149 Views

[Judah is telling Clifford about the murder, disguising it as an idea for a screenplay.]

Judah Rosenthal:
And after the awful deed is done, he finds that he's plagued by deep-rooted guilt. Little sparks of his religious background, which he'd rejected, are suddenly stirred up. He hears his father's voice. He imagines that God is watching his every move. Suddenly, it's not an empty universe at all, but a just and moral one, and he's violated it. Now, he's panic-stricken. He's on the verge of a mental collapse, an inch away from confessing the whole thing to the police. And then one morning, he awakens. The sun is shining, his family is around him and mysteriously, the crisis has lifted. He takes his family on a vacation to Europe and as the months pass, he finds he's not punished. In fact, he prospers. The killing gets attributed to another person — a drifter who has a number of other murders to his credit, so I mean, what the hell? One more doesn't even matter. Now he's scott-free. His life is completely back to normal. Back to his protected world of wealth and privilege.

Clifford Sten:
Yes, but can he ever really go back?

Judah Rosenthal:
People carry sins around. Oh, maybe once in awhile he has a bad moment, but it passes. With time, it all fades.

Clifford Stern:
Yeah, but now his worst beliefs are realized.

Judah Rosenthal:
Well, I said it was a chilling story, didn't I?

Clifford Stern:
I don't know. I think it would be tough for someone to live with that. Very few guys could live with something like that on their conscience.

Judah Rosenthal:
People carry awful deeds around. What do you expect him to do, turn himself in? This is reality. In reality, we rationalize, we deny, or we couldn't go on living.

Clifford Stern:
Here's what I would do: I would have him turn himself in. Then your story assumes tragic proportions. I mean, in the absence of a God, or something, he's forced to assume that responsibility himself. Then you have tragedy.

Judah Rosenthal:
But that's fiction, that's movies. You see too many movies. I'm talking about reality. I mean, if you want a happy ending, you should see a Hollywood movie.


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