| Hannah and Her Sisters | |
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original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Robert Greenhut |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Woody Allen Michael Caine Mia Farrow Carrie Fisher Barbara Hershey Lloyd Nolan Maureen O'Sullivan Daniel Stern Max von Sydow Dianne Wiest |
| Cinematography | Carlo Di Palma |
| Editing by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures Corporation |
| Release date(s) | February 7, 1986 |
| Running time | 106 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6,400,000 (est.) |
| Box office | $59,000,000 |
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film[1] which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner. The movie was written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars along with Mia Farrow as Hannah, Michael Caine as her husband, and Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest as her sisters.
The film's ensemble cast also includes Carrie Fisher, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Max von Sydow, and Julie Kavner. Daniel Stern, Richard Jenkins, Fred Melamed, Lewis Black, Joanna Gleason, John Turturro, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus all have minor roles, as do Tony Roberts and Sam Waterston, who have uncredited cameo appearances. Several of Farrow's children, including a pre-adolescent Soon-Yi Previn, have credited and uncredited roles, mostly as Thanksgiving extras.
The film was for a long time Allen's biggest box office hit, without adjusting for inflation, with a North American gross of US$41 million. Adjusted for inflation it falls behind Annie Hall and Manhattan, and possibly also one or two of his early comedies.[2] Hannah and Her Sisters won both Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first movie to win both supporting actor awards since Julia in 1977, nearly nine years before. Midnight in Paris recently surpassed Hannah and her Sisters' box office, with upwards of $48 million taken in, while it is still in theaters.
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The story is told in three main arcs, with almost all of it occurring during a 12-month period beginning and ending at Thanksgiving parties hosted by Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her husband, Elliot (Michael Caine). Hannah serves as the stalwart hub of the narrative; her own story as a successful actress (a recent success as Nora in A Doll's House) is somewhat secondary, but most of the events of the film connect to her.
An adulterous romance between Elliot and one of Hannah's sisters, Lee (Barbara Hershey), provides the main romantic entanglement of the film. Elliot attributes this to his discontent with his wife's self-sufficiency and resentment of her emotional strength. Lee has lived for five years with a reclusive artist, Frederick (Max von Sydow), who is much older. She finds her relationship with Frederick no longer intellectually or sexually stimulating, in spite of (or maybe because of) Frederick's professed interest in continuing to teach her. She leaves Frederick, much to his sorrow (for he has grown dependent upon her), and has a secret affair with Elliot lasting for many months.
Mickey, another of Allen's neurotic characters, provides comic relief. Parts of his story are scenes from his previous marriage to Hannah and his horrible date with her cocaine-addicted sister Holly (Dianne Wiest), shown in flashbacks; indeed, except for that one brief scene with Hannah, the only character from the main story he interacts with is Holly. Mickey's main story is one of a hypochondriac confronting the possibility of an actual serious disease, but which turns out to be nothing. After a clean bill of health, he quits his job as a television producer and has an existential crisis that leads to unsatisfying experiments with religious conversion to Catholicism and Krishna Consciousness. Ultimately, filled with the meaninglessness of life, he decides to commit suicide by rifle but narrowly misses shooting himself by accident as he holds the weapon. This causes him to take a long walk. He aimlessly stumbles into a theater, which is coincidentally showing the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (part of the 'joyous' declaration of war sequence is featured), and the film helps to remind him why life is worth living. The revelation helps to prepare him for a second date with Holly, which this time blossoms quickly (and mostly off-screen) into love and marriage.
Holly's story is the film's third main arc. She's an unsuccessful actress who flits from thing to thing in a desperate search for purpose in life and success. She dabbles in a catering business, funded by Hannah, but she ends up competing with April (Carrie Fisher), her business partner and a fellow actress, for acting parts and a man (Sam Waterston), ending with Holly giving up both. She decides to try her hand at writing. The career change forces her once again to borrow money from Hannah, a dependency Hannah perhaps welcomes and Holly resents. She writes a script inspired by Hannah and Elliot, greatly upsetting Hannah, who feels it is insulting to her and that it also reveals too much of her private life, and Hannah is puzzled by how Holly can know so much about her private life. In reality, Holly's information comes from Lee, who learned it from her secret lover, Elliot, a fact that threatens to expose the affair. Holly then sets aside her script due to Hannah's objections, and instead writes a story inspired by her own life, which Mickey reads and admires greatly, vowing to help her get it produced and leading to their first date.
A minor arc in the film tells part of the story of Norma and Evan (played by Maureen O'Sullivan, Mia Farrow's actual mother, and Lloyd Nolan, who were both in Never Too Late 20 years earlier). They are Hannah's parents, who still have acting careers of their own, careers disrupted at times by Norma's alcoholism. Evan's flirtation and piano playing provide part of the entertainment during the Thanksgiving get-togethers.
By the time of the film's second Thanksgiving Lee has ended her affair with Elliot and married someone she met while taking classes at Columbia. In a final coda-like act, another year has elapsed and the film ends happily for the three sisters, now all married, and infertile Mickey has somehow impregnated his new wife Holly.
Part of the film's structure and background is borrowed from Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. In both films, a large theatrical family gather for three successive year's celebrations (Thanksgiving in Allen's film, Christmas in Bergman's). The first of each gathering is in a time of contentment, the second in a time of trouble, and the third showing what happens after the resolution of the troubles. The sudden appearance of Holly's reflection behind Mickey's in the closing scene also parallels the apparition behind Alexander of the Bishop's ghost.
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Hannah and Her Sisters opened on February 7, 1986 in 54 theatres, where it gained a stellar $1,265,826 ($23,441 per screen) in its opening weekend. When it expanded to 761 theatres on March 14, it garnered a less spectacular $2,707,966 ($3,809 per screen). Still, it went on to gross $40,084,041, and remains one of the highest-grossing Woody Allen movies.[3]
The film was screened out of competition at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
Hannah and Her Sisters received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Woody Allen received two Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Screenplay, Original and he earned a nomination for Best Director. His work on the film was also recognized with two BAFTA Awards.
Both Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest each won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for their performances as Elliot and Holly, respectively. Hannah and Her Sisters was the last film to win in both supporting acting categories until The Fighter in 2011. The film was also Oscar-nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Best Film Editing.
In France, the film was nominated for a César Award for Best Foreign Film.
Critics Siskel and Ebert each rated the film among the top three of the 1986 film year; Ebert's 1986 review of the film called it "the best movie [Woody Allen] has ever made."
The American Film Institute nominated the film for ranking on the 1997 list of the 100 greatest movies, the list of the 100 funniest movies and the list of the 100 greatest love stories.
The Mad Magazine parody of the film was titled "Henna and Her Sickos."
Welsh band Mclusky references the title of the movie in their 2003 song, "Undress for Success."
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Julia |
Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress |
Succeeded by The Fighter |
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