Woody Allen Films
Magic, Manhattan and a woman looking for more
What happens when you have a comfortable life, a beautiful home and a successful husband, but still feel that something is missing?
That’s the question at the heart of Woody Allen’s Alice (1990). Starring Mia Farrow as Alice Tate, the film follows a wealthy Manhattan housewife whose visit to a herbalist leads her somewhere she never expected to go.
Alice’s days are filled with shopping, school runs and conversations with her friends. Her husband Doug, played by William Hurt, provides a comfortable life, but there’s a distance between them that Alice can’t quite ignore. When she develops back pain, she visits Dr Yang (Keye Luke), a Chinatown herbalist who prescribes a series of unusual remedies.
The herbs do rather more than relieve her back pain. They allow Alice to become invisible, revisit a romance from her past and find the confidence to approach Joe, a jazz musician played by Joe Mantegna. Along the way, she begins to question the life she has built and whether it’s really the life she wants.
The performance
Mia Farrow as Alice
Farrow is at the centre of the film, and much of its appeal comes from watching Alice gradually find her voice. At first, she seems almost apologetic about wanting anything for herself. She worries about what others think, feels guilty about her attraction to Joe and struggles to see beyond the expectations of her privileged world.
Farrow makes that uncertainty entertaining to watch. Alice is often nervous and flustered, but she’s also curious. Once Dr Yang’s remedies give her a glimpse of what might be possible, she can’t simply return to her old routine and forget what she has discovered.
The magical herbs give her opportunities she wouldn’t otherwise take, but they also reveal how much she depends on them. She can become invisible or more confident for a while, yet she still has to decide what she wants once the effects wear off. That makes her more interesting than someone who simply discovers a magical solution to all her problems.
The supporting cast gives her plenty to work with. Hurt’s Doug is distant and preoccupied, while Mantegna brings a warmth to Joe that helps explain Alice’s attraction to him. Alec Baldwin also appears as a former lover whose return gives Alice a chance to look back at the person she once was.
Fantasy and freedom
A little magic in Manhattan
Allen has often played with fantasy in his films, and Alice uses it in a particularly gentle way. The supernatural moments are funny and sometimes surprising, but they also give Alice space to confront things she has been avoiding.
The invisibility scenes are a good example. There’s an obvious comic pleasure in seeing Alice move around unnoticed, but there’s also something revealing about what she chooses to do with that freedom. She can observe and listen without being seen, temporarily escaping the social rules that normally keep her so carefully in place.
Dr Yang, played with a calm, knowing presence by Keye Luke, is an important part of the film. His remedies set everything in motion, but he also offers Alice a different way of looking at her life. As he tells her, love is a complicated emotion, and romance can bring suffering as well as happiness.
The wider filmography
How does Alice compare with other Woody Allen films?
For Woody Allen fans, the fantasy elements may bring The Purple Rose of Cairo to mind. Both films follow women who are unhappy with their lives and encounter something extraordinary that offers a possible escape.
In The Purple Rose of Cairo, the magic comes through the cinema itself, when a character steps off the screen and into Cecilia’s life. In Alice, it comes through Dr Yang’s herbs and the possibilities they open up. Both films are interested in what happens when a person begins to imagine a life beyond the one they know, although Alice takes a lighter approach.
There are also familiar Woody Allen themes here: romantic uncertainty, dissatisfaction, questions about how to live, and a New York setting. But with Alice at the centre, the film gives those ideas a different perspective. We see her world through someone who has been protected by wealth and comfort, yet is beginning to understand how limited that world can be.
On screen
The look and feel of the film
Cinematographer Carlo Di Palma gives the film a soft, inviting look that suits its mix of Manhattan life and fantasy. Alice’s surroundings are elegant and comfortable, which makes it easy to understand why her life might appear enviable from the outside.
The jazz on the soundtrack adds to that familiar Woody Allen atmosphere. It also sits naturally alongside Joe’s place in the story as a musician, giving Alice a connection to a world outside her usual social circle.
The film’s pace is gentle, and some viewers may find Alice’s privileged problems difficult to sympathise with at first. That’s part of what makes her journey interesting: she has to look beyond her own comfortable surroundings before she can decide what matters to her.
A film worth revisiting
Is Alice worth watching?
Alice may not be mentioned as often as Annie Hall or Manhattan, but it’s an interesting part of Allen’s filmography. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and the film gives Farrow a leading role that moves between comedy, romance and fantasy.
For fans who enjoy Woody’s more whimsical films, Alice is well worth revisiting. It has a lovely cast, an elegant New York setting and enough magical moments to make it stand apart from his more straightforward relationship stories.
What stays with you, though, is Alice herself: a woman who begins the film unsure whether she’s even allowed to want something different, and gradually finds the courage to ask for it.