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Hannah and Her Sisters
Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.
1986 · Directed by Woody Allen · 107 min · Comedy · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 19 frames
Tagline
A story between two Thanksgivings.
Plot
The story is told in three main story arcs, with most of it occurring during a 24-month period beginning and ending at Thanksgiving parties, held at The Langham, hosted by Hannah and her husband, Elliot. Hannah, a renowned actress who now focuses mainly on her family, serves as the stalwart hub of the narrative; most of the events of the film connect to her.
Elliot becomes infatuated with Hannah's sister Lee, and eventually begins an affair with her. Elliot attributes his behavior 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, 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 after admitting she has been seeing someone else. For the remainder of the year between the first and second Thanksgiving gatherings, Elliot and Lee carry on their affair despite Elliot's inability to end his marriage to Hannah. Lee finally ends the affair during the second Thanksgiving, explaining that she is finished waiting for him to commit and has started dating someone else. Soon afterwards Elliot argues with Hannah who suspects he is having an affair but the two reconcile that evening.
Hannah's ex-husband Mickey, a television writer, is present mostly in scenes outside of the primary story. Flashbacks reveal that his marriage to Hannah fell apart after they were unable to have children because of his infertility (although they had twins through sperm donation from his business partner before divorcing). He also went on a disastrous date with Hannah's sister Holly, when they were set up by Hannah after the divorce. A hypochondriac, he goes to his doctor complaining of hearing loss and is frightened by the possibility that he might have a brain tumor. When tests prove that he is perfectly healthy, he is initially overjoyed but almost immediately afterwards despairs that life is meaningless. His existential crisis leads to unsatisfying experiments with religious conversion to Catholicism and a brief interest in Krishna Consciousness. Ultimately, a suicide attempt leads him to find meaning in his life after unexpectedly viewing the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup in a movie theater. The revelation that life should be enjoyed rather than understood leads to a second date with Holly, which this time blossoms into love.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Woody Allen
- Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma
- Edited by: Susan E. Morse
- Production design: Stuart Wurtzel
- Produced by: Robert Greenhut
Cast
- Mia Farrow as Hannah
- Barbara Hershey as Lee
- Dianne Wiest as Holly
- Woody Allen as Mickey Sachs
- Michael Caine as Elliot
- Lloyd Nolan as Evan
- Maureen O'Sullivan as Norma
- Carrie Fisher as April Knox
- Julie Kavner as Gail
- Max von Sydow as Frederick
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Orion Pictures, Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions
- Budget: $6,400,000
- Box office: $40,084,041
- Themes: new york city, opera, writing, artist, thanksgiving, hypochondriac, dysfunctional family, langham, television producer, architecture
More by Woody Allen
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