A decade after his first foray into pure drama with the woefully self-conscious Interiors, and only a year removed from the awkwardly staged September, 1988’s Another Woman announced with quietly assured bravura Woody Allen’s mastery of what theretofore had alluded his directorial grasp: the psychological character study, entirely absent of humor. Initially the prospect of an Allen film sans slapstick, neurotic riffing, or charming whimsy might seem egregious, if not downright pretentious—take away the laughs and what’s left might be a platitudinous existentialism (how does man cope in a godless universe, et al) probed by insufferable academics (always WASPs in these pure dramas, all traces of Allen’s Jewishness vanishing in the Manhattan air when he foregoes the anxious relief of irony) within the stuffy confines of Upper East Side penthouses and Vermont getaways.
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