Review of Interiors (1978) by Todd P — 21 Jun 2009

I've been avoiding this Woody Allen film since, like, forever, since it seems to generate pretty extreme opinions one way or the other. Although Allen was always upfront about his love for Ingmar Bergman, it must have been a shock in 1978 for audiences whose only other point of reference for him were his goofball comedies to encounter a film that might as well have been subtitled in Swedish and came off as being pretentious.

In the 30 years since then, the "Woody Allen-as-auteur" meme has been pretty well established and his more serious films from that time provide the vantage point that was originally missing.

Unfortunately, I still would rate "Interiors" as merely OK -- the sets, lighting, and editing are all exquisite (and, yes, they owe much to Bergman) and those elements alone make it worthwhile to watch.

However, it is very hard to really care much about the undeniably somber and tragic story presented here. The acting is pretty good, but the characters' dialogue is unnatural, pedantic and (yes) pretentious.

Maureen Stapleton brings "Interiors" to life with her lowbrow tastes and charm (in contrast to the other characters' stiff and distant personalities), but she comes in more than halfway through the film and frankly seems a bit out of place.

"Interiors" may be worth a second look at some other time, but my first impression was "meh.".