''Interiors'' is a 1978 American
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
film written and directed by
Woody Allen
Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...
. It stars
Kristin Griffith,
Mary Beth Hurt,
Richard Jordan
Robert Anson Jordan Jr. (July 19, 1937 – August 30, 1993), known professionally as Richard Jordan, was an American actor. A long-time member of the New York Shakespeare Festival, he performed in many Off Broadway and Broadway plays. His films ...
,
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton (née Hall; born January 5, 1946) is an American actress. She has received List of awards and nominations received by Diane Keaton, various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a Bri ...
,
E. G. Marshall,
Geraldine Page
Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924June 13, 1987) was an American actress. With a career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Geraldine Page, numer ...
,
Maureen Stapleton, and
Sam Waterston.
Allen's first full-fledged film in the drama genre, it was met with acclaim from critics. It received five
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
nominations, including
Best Director,
Best Original Screenplay (both for Allen),
Best Actress (Page), and
Best Supporting Actress (Stapleton). Page also won the
BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Plot
Arthur, a corporate attorney, and Eve, an interior decorator, are the parents of three adult daughters. Renata, the eldest daughter, is a poet whose husband Frederick, a struggling writer, feels eclipsed by her success. Flyn, the youngest daughter, is an actress who is away most of the time filming; the low quality of her films is an object of ridicule behind her back. The middle daughter, Joey, who is in a relationship with Mike, cannot settle on a career, and resents her mother for favoring Renata, while Renata resents their father's concern over Joey's lack of direction.
One morning, Arthur unexpectedly announces that he wants a separation from his wife and would like to live alone. Eve, who is
clinically depressed, attempts suicide in her new Manhattan apartment. The shock of these two events causes a rift among the sisters. Arthur returns from a trip to Greece with Pearl, a high-spirited and more "normal" woman, whom he intends to marry. His daughters are disturbed that Arthur would disregard Eve's suicide attempt and find another woman, to whom Joey refers as a "vulgarian".
Arthur and Pearl marry at the family's
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
beach house, with Renata, Joey, and Flyn in attendance. Later in the evening, Joey lashes out at Pearl when Pearl accidentally breaks one of Eve's vases. In the middle of the night, Frederick drunkenly attempts to rape Flyn in the garage, but she manages to escape. Meanwhile, Joey finds Eve in the house, and sadly explains how much she has given up for her mother, and how disdainfully she is treated. Eve walks out onto the beach and into the surf. Joey unsuccessfully attempts to save Eve, but nearly drowns in the process. Mike rescues Joey, pulling her to shore, so that Pearl resuscitates the drowned victim by tilting Joey's head back, clearing the airway, and pinching the nose, to administer rescue breaths into her lungs via
mouth-to-mouth.
The family attends Eve's funeral, each placing a single white rose, Eve's favorite flower and a symbol of hope to her, on Eve's wooden coffin, after which the three sisters look out at the sea from their former family beach house and comment on the peacefulness of the sea.
Cast
Reception
Box office
''Interiors'' grossed $10.4 million in the United States and Canada.
Critical response
On the
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10.
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' called the film "beautiful" and complimented
Gordon Willis on his "use of cool colors that suggest civilization's precarious control of natural forces", but noted:
Richard Schickel of ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' wrote that the film's "desperate sobriety ... robs it of energy and passion"; Allen's "style is Bergmanesque, but his material is
Mankiewiczian, and the discontinuity is fatal. Doubtless this was a necessary movie for Allen, but it is both unnecessary and a minor embarrassment for his well-wishers."
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
gave the film four stars and praised it highly, writing, "Here we have a Woody Allen film, and we're talking about
O'Neill and
Bergman and traditions and influences? Yes, and correctly. Allen, whose comedies have been among the cheerful tonics of recent years, is astonishingly assured in his first drama."
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune'' who co-hosted a movie review television series alongside colleague Roger Ebert.
Siskel started writing for the '' ...
awarded three stars out of four and wrote:
Charles Champlin called the film "somber, intense and stunning", concluding, "Like ''
Cries and Whispers'', Allen's ''Interiors'' is, for all the somberness of the material, in the end an affirmation of life and a transcendent piece of art. The film lovers will love it if joke-seekers do not.
Penelope Gilliatt of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' wrote: "This droll piece of work is
llen'smost majestic so far. The theme its characters express is very
Chekhovian. It is pinned to the idea that the hardest, and most admirable thing to do is to act properly through a whole life."
James Monaco, in his 1979 book ''American Film Now'', described ''Interiors'' as "the most pretentious film by a major American filmmaker in the last thirty years" alongside ''
Mickey One'' (1965).
In 2016, ''Interiors'' was listed as Allen's 11th best film in an article by ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' critics
Robbie Collin and Tim Robey, who wrote that "the emotional effort being expended is cumulatively hard to shrug off" and praised Stapleton's performance.
Woody Allen's response
Allen's own fears about the film's reception are recounted in a 1991 biography of Allen by
Eric Lax, where he quotes
Ralph Rosenblum, the film's
editor:
Later, while watching the film with an acquaintance, Allen reportedly said, "It's always been my fear. I think I'm writing ''
Long Day's Journey into Night'' and it turns into ''
Edge of Night''."
Looking back on the film in 1982, Allen said:
Accolades
Soundtrack
* "
Keepin' Out of Mischief Now" (1932) – Written by
Fats Waller &
Andy Razaf – Performed by
Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
* "
Wolverine Blues" (1923) – Written by
Ferdinand Morton – Performed by
The World's Greatest Jazz Band
Popular culture
The plot and characters of ''Interiors'' are alluded to in the
Death Cab for Cutie song "Death of an Interior Decorator", taken from the 2003 album ''
Transatlanticism''.
Notes
References
External links
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{{Authority control
1978 films
1978 drama films
1970s American films
1970s English-language films
American drama films
English-language drama films
Films about depression
Films about divorce
Films about dysfunctional families
Films about sisters
Films about suicide
Films based on works by Ingmar Bergman
Films directed by Woody Allen
Films produced by Charles H. Joffe
Films set on Long Island
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York (state)
Films shot in New York City
Films with screenplays by Woody Allen
United Artists films