Watch Alice For Free

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Available on Blu-ray Disc (Region B)USA 1990 English (Colour); Comedy/Romance/Fantasy (Orion); 106 minutes (15 certificate)Crew includes: Woody Allen (Director/Screenwriter); Robert Greenhut (Producer); Jack Rollins, Charles H. Joffe (Executive Producers); Carlo Di Palma (Cinematographer); Santo Loquasto (Production Designer); Susan E. Morse (Editor)Cast includes: Alec Baldwin (Eddie), Blythe Danner (Dorothy), Judy Davis (Vicki), Mia Farrow (Alice Tait), William Hurt (Doug Tait), Keye Luke (Dr Yang), Joe Mantegna (Joe Ruffalo), Bernadette Peters (Muse), Cybill Shepherd (Nancy Brill), Gwen Verdon (Alice's Mother)Academy Award nomination: Original Screenplay; Golden Globe nomination: Actress - Musical/Comedy (Farrow)"A younger man and a bolder woman."A neglected, unfulfilled housewife (Farrow) fantasises about having an affair with a divorced musician (Mantegna), when she is made to reappraise her life on visiting a Chinese acupuncturist (Luke, in his final film) for a bad back, and is instead prescribed magic herbs that allow her to lose her inhibitions, turn invisible, and communicate with a dead ex-boyfriend (Baldwin).Overfamiliar elements - Farrow (back then), jazz soundtrack (plus, in this case, subject matter), very Allen-esque dialogue (though without the man himself appearing) - combine with a gentle romance demonstrating a nice change of pace for normally tough-guy Mantegna.Important lesson - disregard trivialities in favour of what's important - emerges from this lightweight Allen.Blu-ray Extras: Trailer. * (2/10)

Made right after one of Woody Allen's most celebrated films, "Crimes And Misdemeanors", "Alice" seems to be one of the forgotten entries in his filmography. In both of these films, Allen effortlessly walks a fine line between drama and comedy, and although "Alice" appears to be a smaller, simpler film compared to "Crimes", the viewer gradually realizes that the central dilemma - will Mia Farrow cheat on her husband or not ? - is just a pretext: the film seamlessly blends reality with fantasy (the fantasy touches are creative, though not unprecedented in Allen's cinema: see, for example, "Play It Again, Sam" or "The Purple Rose Of Cairo"), and the present with the past, to paint the portrait of a woman at a crossroads in her life. And who better to play that woman than Mia Farrow, who does "mousiness" to sweet perfection? Many other fine actors appear as well; William Hurt is kind of boring as the husband - but that's the point! Blythe Danner shines as Mia's sister. Only the ending becomes a little too preachy. *** out of 4.

ALICE is a mediocre film that could have been a good film. This is because Woody Allen likes to dabble in themes such as self-discovery and the angst of relationships with others and with the self, but he frames everything in schtick, so that everything that happens is basically the setup for jokes. This works well when he sticks to comedy and satirizes wealthy Upper West Side New Yorkers, but you can't have a film about self-discovery when everything that is about to become serious deteriorates into schtick. Male directors have a long history of fetishizing actresses and trying to squeeze their female secrets out of them, and Allen is no exception. But Allen goes one further, and makes his actresses like ventriloquist dummies who adopt his own neurotic self-deprecating style. So rather than trying to get into an actress's soul, as Rosselini or Bergman did, he inserts his own soul into them and has them be him. It's a sort of vampirism. Psychologists have noted that compassion lies in the ability not to understand how YOU would feel in another person's situation, but to understand how THEY feel, as THEMSLVES, as a person who is NOT you. Allen lacks compassion in that sense, and that is a strange handicap for a writer who is attempting scripts that deal with issues of identity. His vampirism causes him to create a world where his own values predominate: that is, where everyone has the hots for everyone else, and where the activity du jour is for people to jump in bed with one another. Mia Farrow's character Alice is originally drawn into this world, but in the end rejects it for higher spiritual needs (going to Calcutta, working with Mother Theresa, giving up her wealth and selfish lifestyle and servants, and doing her own cooking and cleaning). Female socialites gossip at the end of the film about her remarkable transformation, and include in the same breath the transformation of another friend who has had plastic surgery. While Allen seems to be making fun of these gossipy women, he is also shares their view of Alice: that her transformation is as shallow as having a facelift. He always takes a tone of petulant jealousy in his films when women reject him in favor of something else. He seems to feel most abandoned not when they are leaving him not another man, but when they are leaving him for a place where they can hide away from him in their own soul - to "find themselves." His most famous films - Annie Hall, Manhattan, and others - all deal with this theme of being rejected by a woman when she goes into herself. He makes fun of women when they do this. They are seen as flaky, self-involved, being attracted to new-agey forms of self-discovery that are beneath him. For me what is really deflating about his movies is his jealousy of the spiritual center of women, and his attempt to trivialize and belittle them for having deeper souls than him. It's as if he doesn't want anyone to feel anything beautiful if he can't. For Allen, women are disappointing because they have to go on these spiritual journeys and won't just go with romance (which for him means that everyone gets to bed everyone all the time). Even where there are opportunities for something really interesting to happen - such as when characters are given a magic potion that allows them to be invisible for a time - the only way they take advantage of this is to watch other people having sex, voyeuristically gaze at models undressing, or listen to people engaging in gossip about love affairs. So nothing ever rises above the level of a sex comedy.Most viewers will miss the references in the mostly 1930s soundtrack. Over the opening credits "Limehouse Blues" plays, a song from the '20s about the ghetto in Chinatown: "In Limehouse, where Orientals love to play, In Limehouse, where you can hear those blues all day…" This song is the setup for Alice's visit to the weird Chinese herbalist/ hypnotist doctor, and plays whenever Alice visits his exotic den in Chinatown. It's a type of racist humor that may have played well in the '50s, but not so well today. "I Remember You" plays when her dead husband pays her a visit, another gag. And "Alice Blue Gown" plays during Alice's moments of self-discovery and over the ending credits, and may even be the inspiration for the title and character name. This song is from around 1919, and is about a girl singing wistfully about a "beautiful Alice blue gown" that she used to have. Here are some of the lyrics: "In my sweet little Alice blue gown, When I first wandered down into town, I was so proud inside, As I felt every eye, And in every shop window I primped, passing by." This indeed is the way Allen looks at his Alice character: as a sweet girl proud to wear a lovely gown, primping and trying to catch men's eyes. He plays this song when Alice is going on her spiritual journey, which would seem inappropriate. It's as if he is saying that she is not a grown woman with children and her own inner life, but only a lovely young girl in a gown, a girl who exists only to be loved and admired but who is stupid enough to reject love for her own silly pursuits.In the end Allen makes fun of Alice's purity and refusal to wallow in bereft values like the others with the song, and by framing her selfless actions as a form of fanaticism. This is actually how sociopaths feel: jealous of people with real feelings and real love. Allen appears to have a voracious appetite for youth and innocence, which he merely tries to corrupt.

Woody Allen is a cockeyed genius. But he makes unique films. This is a fantasy, a fairy tale, a comedy,a drama, a social documentary. It is engaging and distinctive with Allen's creative fingerprints all over it. The banal chatter, the simple yet well plotted shots, the occasional flights of wild fantasy, the innate feel for New York City and its unique lifestyle of faux sophistication. These are all Woody Allen trademarks and when you're that good, you're entitled to some personality quirks. Nobody comes close to capturing New York the way Allen does. Mia Farrow excels as a naive, confused, inexperienced and (not so) innocent wife. But it's Allen's vision that makes the movie. A keeper!