Hannah and Her Sisters Criticism

Laura Incheck
03/22/10
Hannah and Her Sisters Critique

Hannah and Her Sisters tells the tale of the lives, loves, and infidelities among a tightly-knit artistic clan.
The combination of music transitions, irony, symbolism, and a predictable yet surprising ending saturated the film with reality. Throughout the movie, there were many ironies one must take into account to understand it. The first was that there was a harmonious switch between jazz and classical music. Within this it seemed as though, except for the very end, the music being played was opposite of the mood. An example is when Woody Allen, the hypochondriac, walks home from the doctor’s office after learning he might have a brain tumor, the music suggests a light and happy mood, and instead the viewers get a stressed and panicked character who is contemplating his life as though it has come to an end.
A second irony is that Holly, the neurotic, crack addict actress, is the one who truly turns her life around and starts writing scripts for a living. She also dates and eventually marries Mickey (played by Allen), and at the very end tells him that she is pregnant. Earlier in the plot Mickey couldn’t have children with his previous wife Hannah, who is one of Holly’s sisters. Holly and Hannah’s other sister, Lee, finds out that Hannah’s new husband, Elliot, is in love with her and spends most of the movie having an affair with him.
Hannah and Her Sisters was also dripping with consistencies. The movie started and ended with Thanksgiving possibly meaning that at the beginning the large family seemed to forget what the holiday was all about, and then at the end they come together in happiness and true thanksgiving for the past year. The grandparents of the family, though they didn’t have a large role in the movie said more in their actions than their words. With every appearance in a scene together, the wife would be singing, the husband would be playing the piano. It was almost as if they were showing that they had already been through all this drama that has taken over their kids’ lives and are enjoying life to the fullest. It was comforting in way to see that there was at least one couple that remained consistent and predictable throughout the entire movie.
The film had a knack for showing the beauty of New York and the people in it. When Holly and April go out with David (whom have insignificant roles for this critiques purpose), he shows them the architecture; the cameras focus in on the texture of the buildings making it seem like the viewers were actually there. At the end when Holly runs into Mickey they go out and walk through a park. Both of these scenes suggest Allen’s love for the city but it has a deeper meaning. The theme that was displayed throughout the rest of the film was that life is beautiful; we just have to slow down enough from our busy lives to appreciate it. It is Allen’s witty humor to put in such a humorous, realistic cliché.