The increasing directorial ambition evinced by Sleeper and Love and Death probably made it only to be expected that Woody Allen would seek to direct a movie not centred on himself as performer, and the elements of psychodrama in Annie Hall similarly made predictable a venture outside the realms of comedy. The evidence of Interiors …, however, may call into question his wisdom in attempting both aims at once.
As the title implies, Interiors is chamber drama…. The film's essentially theatrical construction … heightens the suspicion that the condition to which Interiors aspires is that of Long Island Chekhov, and that the three sisters at the heart of the picture represent a Chekhovian legacy as much as did the trio in Cries and Whispers. But where Bergman is able to use this as a starting point for his own inimitable concerns, it is by no means certain where Allen is headed (though it is clearly not in the direction of laughter). (p. 60)
Dramatically and thematically, it is with our response to Renata and Joey that the essential stumbling block to the movie presents itself. Involvement with them is crucially hindered by the fact that the family background is not elaborated in enough detail to let us judge for ourselves the validity of, for instance, Renata's claim that Joey feels guilty for rejecting her mother, or Joey's that Renata is wary of her (Joey) as a competitive threat. And more damagingly still, Allen's delineation of these literary-artistic lives sometimes verges uncomfortably close to unwitting parody. When Renata constantly seeks to convince her husband of his talent as a novelist, or declares that she is preoccupied with death but 'the intimacy of it embarrasses me', or when Joey voices 'a need to express myself, but I don't know what I want to express', we seem to be only a small step away from the memorably pompous culture-vulture of the cinema foyer scene in Annie Hall.
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