Interiors is one of Woody Allen’s finest films. Noted as his first real drama, Interiors ranks among the best of Allen’s best, beside that of Stardust Memories, Another Woman, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sisters and Manhattan. Amid his Golden Age of filmmaking, the director arguably produced a dozen great films.
Interiors begins with the mother’s suicide, although as viewers, we don’t know this. We see Diane Keaton looking out of a window, viewing images of her and her two sisters playing on a beach when they are young. We see the cool interior, everything ordered and somberly lighted, thanks to the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist, the same cinematographer Ingmar Bergman used for his own films. Thus, it is no wonder that Interiors is Woody Allen’s most Bergman-like film.
The mother, (Eve) played by Geraldine Page, gives a stellar performance as a mentally ill “ice queen,” and the father, (Arthur) played by E.G. Marshall, notes in the beginning of the film, while looking out of a window, “I had dropped out of law school when I met Eve. She was very beautiful.” The film does a great job switching from past to present, filling in the little details later on.
Characters spend many moments beside windows, looking out of them, in fact. The interiors of the homes consist of “beiges and earth tones,” and are this way for a reason. Everyone seems detached, cold and austere. Allen also manages to accomplish the unthinkable: to create a great film that is full of genuinely unlikable characters.
Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) is the whiney, uptight wannabe creative type who has “all the anguish and anxiety of the artistic personality without any of the talent.” Renata (Diane Keaton) is the pretentious poet who locks herself away in Connecticut, trying to overcome her writer’s block, and then Flyn, (Kristen Griffith) is the somewhat ditzy aspiring actress who lacks depth.
Likewise, Allen touches upon many aspects in the arts, from those who struggle with trying to be one, yet do not have talent (such as Joey) to Frederick, the novelist husband of Renata, (played by Richard Jordan) who suffers angst over his lack of critical acclaim and has no problem drinking himself unconscious, to Eve, who admires Renata’s talent yet never gives Joey the affection she craves. Likewise, Renata resents the fact that their father has spent his life favoring Joey over her.
When Arthur announces he is leaving Eve for a “trial separation,” Eve cannot emotionally handle it, and she eventually attempts suicide. Sibling rivalry and dynamics are intricately demonstrated, where Renata continually encourages Eve that it is only a matter of time until her parents will reconcile, while Joey does not think Eve should delude herself. It is Joey’s pessimism that Eve resents, and Renata’s optimism that Eve craves, which makes the outcome all the more ironic when Joey is the one who ends up being right.
Tensions rise when Arthur brings a woman (Pearl, played by Maureen Stapleton) he met in Greece over to dinner at Renata’s house. Pearl is a stark contrast to the family: she is dressed in bright red, is outspoken and loud, and is interested in card tricks. Unable to connect with the family’s “cerebral discourse,” when Arthur announces their engagement, Joey refuses to give her blessing, and refers to Pearl as a “vulgarian.” Then a great exchange is made between the two siblings:
Renata: Will you tell him it’s ok? Clearly it’s your approval he needs.
Joey: He clearly had no trouble getting yours.
Renata: Well clearly it doesn’t mean as much as yours.
Finally, when the mother does suicide herself, moments before this takes place, there is an extended dialogue scene between Eve and Joey, with Joey doing all of the talking. She confesses both the rage and love she feels for her mother, and then Eve walks into the ocean never to be seen again. Thus, Joey follows her in, and it is Pearl who literally breathes the life back into Joey once she is pulled back onto land. While the film does not offer a happy ending, the characters are still as they are, with the exception of Joey, who at least learns to get her anxieties out in a journal, noting how her feelings “seemed very powerful to her.”
Many critics dismissed this film as melodrama, and even if one could claim that, then it is melodrama at its highest. A certain English playwright named Shakespeare was also great at constructing melodrama, and Allen proves it can be done if done well. Interiors is a great film. The beauty ranks alongside the best of Bergman, and the writing is akin to Strindberg or O’Neill, yet at the same time, holds that stamp of a great individual artist with the name Woody Allen.
