Review of Interiors (1978) by Drew S — 23 Jun 2011

It's...so...DOUR. All these people do is mope. If Interiors was an hour and a half of this depressing family contemplating their lives and problems, then it would have been a complete disaster - a highly literate one, mind, but something tonally flat and bereft of any dynamic or dramatic impetus.

Maureen Stapleton is the film's saving grace, a deceptively observant burst of vigor introduced at about the halfway mark. She shakes this stultified, miserable social unit right to its core. Though the costume design, placing her in vibrant reds and pinks to contrast with the oppressive beiges and grays she's surrounded by, does her subtlety no favors, she immediately paints a portrait of a woman who knows what's going on but is too considerate to call anyone out for it.

Stapleton aside, the acting is uniformly excellent, and Woody Allen does an excellent job of unfurling each characters' challenges and neuroses through the course of the narrative. This is a difficult film to get through, though, both as a Woody Allen piece (his trademark incisive humor is almost totally absent) and as a suffocating chamber drama - enter at your own risk.