Woody Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors: Old School Reviews

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Director: Woody Allen

Stars: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach

Release Company: MGM Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

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"We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale; most of our choices are on lesser points, but we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices."

So says Prof. Louis Levy (Martin S. Bergmann) in a voiceover during the final montage of Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, where we witness characters literally make life and death decisions along with more mundane ones. In fact, Allen often places us in Judah Rosenthal's (Martin Landau) shoes, so we know about as much as he does about his situation and go through the same agonizing process.

A successful, well-respected ophthalmologist, Judah has a middle-aged fling with Fatal Attraction-clone Delores (Angelica Huston), who refuses to be "ignored" when he attempts to break the affair off. Seriously in need of therapy, Delores desperately attempts to cling on to Judah—writing a "tell all" note to his wife (fortunately intercepted), calling his home and office persistently, and threatening blackmail to ruin his family and professional life. Judah is a man who has it all with a supportive wife, stable family, solid reputation, and upper class lifestyle, but Delores is driving him bonkers.

There is an "easy" solution. Judah's brother Jack (Jerry Orbach) is well connected with a network of hit men who will, given the word and a few thousand dollars, take care of the hysterical troublemaker. But how can a man like Judah commit such a crime, even to keep his entire life from hitting the junk heap? He is no Raskolnikov, thinking that he's superhuman and beyond ordinary morality—he existentially views the world as harsh, pointless, and empty of values, but finds himself having pangs of conscience just as Dostoyevsky's protagonist does. Could those childhood teachings about the "eyes of God" seeing all things be plaguing him?

Running parallel to Judah's story is a secondary, more lighthearted one centering on indie documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern (Woody Allen). Trapped in a sterile marriage, his wife arranges for Cliff to make a breakthrough documentary about her tremendously successful filmmaking brother, Lester (Alan Alda). Cliff can't stand Lester's smugness and his commercial success, but meets a kindred soul on the rebound during the shoot—Halley Reed (Mia Farrow), who shares his enthusiasm for Professor Levy's positive philosophical takes on Life. They'd both rather make a film about the old professor, but must continue the far more commercially viable biography about Lester, who practically makes Cliff gag with his philosophy on comedy—"If it bends, it works. If it breaks, it doesn't work."

Allen bends enough to find the proper balance between comedy and seriousness in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Light as the film appears at times, there's some heady philosophical dilemmas going on here, lending more credence to the idea that Allen supplies Ingmar Bergman to the American audience with heavy doses of humor. This time he even uses one of Bergman's cinematographers, Sven Nykvist, to capture the inner nuances of character, most notably with Judah. Throughout Allen's serio-comedy, philosophies are contrasted. Both Cliff and Judah view the world as basically indifferent and meaningless, yet greatly admire people who see moral structure to the Universe and real meaning in life. Ironically, one of these positive role models who has consistently said "yes" to life wakes up one morning and says "no."

So, does it really matter what your philosophic bent is, in the end? The characters go through a myriad of improbable, illogical scenarios that still never sink into farce. Events are often unpredictable, and Allen's film demonstrates this. Martin Landau gives his finest performance this side of Ed Wood, truly letting us inside his moral quandary throughout. He's never played straight comedy, and Allen uses his skills wisely, as he does with the entire ensemble cast. Alda uses his natural affability well to play the clueless, but likeably self-absorbed director, and Mia Farrow comes across sincerely as the well-intentioned, sensitive filmmaker who can still be charmed by champagne and caviar.

Woody Allen has created at least one feature film each year since Crimes and Misdemeanors, but this is his last truly great film—one that explores existential questions in a comic way. Common Allen themes of seeking love in this crazy world through simple things like family and work are found, yet nagging Bergmanesque questions about larger issues remain. Is there truly a moral order to the Universe? Allen supplies no easy "crime doesn't pay" answers, nor does he supply blatant redemptive baptismal scenes or bestow beacons of light upon his characters. In the end both Allen and Landau reflect on events as they have occurred without resolution. Which is as it should be. Life is like that, and we shouldn't expect a filmmaker to wrap it up for us in an hour and forty-seven minutes.