Touches You

best movie i've ever seen.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Directed by Woody Allen, and featuring Michael Caine's and Dianne Wiest's first Best Supporting Actor/Actress (Oscar winning) performances, this Oscar nominated (for Best Picture) comedy tells so many truths about relationships and life in general that it's probably his best work, and I highly recommend it. Allen's screenplay also won an Oscar, his direction was nominated, and the film received two other nominations as well.The cast is great, and deep, and includes: Barbara Hershey, Carrie Fisher, Mia Farrow, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Max von Sydow, Daniel Stern, Julie Kavner (mother Marge on TV's The Simpsons), Joanna Gleason, John Turturro, even Tony Roberts and Sam Waterson, uncredited.Allen plays a hypochondriac TV producer - Kavner's his assistant and Turturro's one of his manic writers - that thinks he's going to die from a brain tumor. He's also the ex-husband of Farrow, who's now married to Caine, who lusts after Farrow's sister Hershey, who lives with eccentric, withdrawn from society artist von Sydow, who's upset that newly rich musician Stern wants a painting to match his puce couch.Wiest plays Hannah's other sister, a former drug addict and "out of work" actress who starts a catering business with her friend Fisher, who competes with her for the affections of Waterson. O'Sullivan and Nolan play the sisters' parents: she's a former star actress, he's her "out of the limelight" husband that strayed, though they're both still happily together. When Allen's character was married to Farrow's, his low sperm count caused them to ask his business partner Roberts, with wife Gleason, to donate his so that they could have twins.The film's three parts are divided by large family gathering Thanksgiving dinner parties at Caine's and Farrow's (real life) apartment; smaller sections by silent film-like dialogue pages.

The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: We start with a Thanksgiving dinner gathering at Hannah and Elliot's house. Sisters Lee and Holly are there. Lee's husband Frederick is a bit too stand-offish for such gatherings. Holly might start in catering, and asks Hannah for a loan to get started. Elliot muses in the opening narration about his attraction to Lee, and how he should stifle it, but cannot. Father Evan and mother Norma, two veteran entertainers, entertain at piano and song.Mickey (Hannah's ex) is a hypochondriac who produces an edgy television show that is frequently in conflict with the censors. Gail tries to keep Mickey on track as he bounces from memory to memory of his past marriage and his past partnership with Norman. Perhaps worst of all, Mickey becomes convinced that he has a brain tumor.Delineation of conflicts: Mickey has to fight his hypochondria, and his slowly waning binding to Hannah. Lee and Elliot have to figure out whatever it is that is going on between them. Holly needs to figure out where she's going in life.Resolution: The threads move forward more or less organically. Nicely done.

"Hannah and Her Sisters" is another Comedy movie made by Woody Allen. In this movie we have three sisters Hannah, Holly and Lee. Everything started when Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee and her hypochondriac ex-husband starts a relationship with her other sister Holly.I liked this movie because is a classic Woody Allen movie with a nice plot which includes also some very god twists and the direction made and written by him. In addition to this they have to be mentioned some very good interpretations such as Michael Caine's who played as Hannah's husband, Mia Farrow's who played as Hannah, Barbara Hershey's who played as Hannah's sister Lee and last but not least Woody Allen's who played as Hannah's ex-husband.Lastly I have to say that "Hannah and Her Sisters" is a nice movie to watch because it combines very well Comedy with Drama and I believe that it's one of the best movies of Woody Allen. I strongly recommend it to everyone.

Life is one giant human comedy, and Woody Allen understands, and portrays, this fact better than any living American director. I prefer him when he's trying to make a comedy comedy ("Manhattan Murder Mystery", "Sleeper"), but there's no denying just how proficient of a writer, of a director he is when it comes to studying the complex relationships between lovers, friends, family. "Annie Hall" remains immortally wise, "Manhattan" blindsidingly poignant. He hit his stride during his professional (and personal) relationship with Mia Farrow (lasting in the movies from 1982-1992), "Hannah and Her Sisters" acting as the era defining tour-de-force that broadened his horizons as a writer as mischievously observant as his idol, Ingmar Bergman.Told in three stretches over a two-year period, "Hannah and Her Sisters" begins during Thanksgiving and ends during Thanksgiving, both dinners held at Hannah (Farrow) and her husband, Elliot's (Michael Caine), impressive New York apartment. Acting as a plot device in similar spirit to the Cookie of "Cookie's Fortune" or the Alex of "The Big Chill", the interweaving stories, in some shape or form, connect to the perpetually frazzled blonde.As the film opens, Hannah, along with her sisters, are facing particularly difficult periods in their lives. Normally happily married, Hannah and Elliot's union begins to hit turbulence when Elliot suddenly finds himself obsessed with his wife's earthy sibling, Lee (Barbara), with whom he begins having an affair. The neurotic Lee, in turn, is currently living with a much older, antisocial artist (Max Von Sydow) she no longer finds physically or mentally arousing. While Lee's guilt thickens, Hannah, in the meantime, is forced to act as the emotional net for her basket case sister Holly (Dianne Wiest), an ex-cocaine addict who jumps from career to career while attempting to also make it as a Broadway actress. Her failed jabs at a normal life eventually settle, however, when she begins dating Mickey (Woody Allen), Hannah's hypochondriac ex-husband."Hannah and Her Sisters" kicks off as warm as any one of Allen's other comedies, but as its observational progression toward character study oblivion becomes more apparent, the film turns voyeuristic — it's as though we're a fly on the wall, catching glimpses of these imperfect people at their most imperfect times. Notice how the vulnerabilities of the characters never lose their prominence even when they're putting on friendly façades for strangers, how Allen draws such subtly profound characterizations that it becomes increasingly effortless to understand these people so well it's as though we've known them since they were children. Long after "Hannah and Her Sisters" closes does one begin to realize just how masterful of a writer Allen is; he can cover up his genius with his neuroses all he wants, but to make a cast of characters feel so multidimensional in the scope of a single film is an astonishingly difficult task — for Allen, it's duck soup. He's the perceptive one in the room.It's as if he's known people like these before. Hannah is the kindhearted success story whose need to nurture sometimes hinders her own personal growth; Lee is the intellectual who doesn't quite know where to focus her potential. Holly is the type that fantasizes about what her life could be like rather than trying to make much needed changes; Mickey closes himself off in a bubble of fear because he doesn't want to admit that a mundane life is something okay to live. Perfectly cast, the ensemble feels like one large extension of Allen's consciousness."Hannah and Her Sisters" is a saga of failed attempts at moviedom happiness, combining comedy and heartfelt drama with startling pathos. The characters here aren't merely characters but people, people with ticks, little confidence, doubts. How Allen so successfully pens them all I can hardly understand — just let the film do the talking instead of me.