Main Cast: Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner, Gene Hackman
Release Year: 1988
Country: US
Run Time: 81 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Grad-school administrative head Marion Post (Gena Rowlands) is in the midst of writing a book. The walls are thin in the apartment she's taken for work purposes, and soon Marion begins listening to the sessions conducted by her neighbor, an analyst. One of the patients is Hope (Mia Farrow), whose marriage is in tatters. As Hope prattles on, Marion begins flashing back to highlights (and lowlights) of her own marriage. Her musings are constantly interrupted by the memory of the man (Gene Hackman) she'd once ardently loved. Later on, chance encounters with old friends force Marion to face the fact that she has lived her life sheltering herself from her true emotions. Director Woody Allen's career-long indebtedness to Ingmar Bergman is underlined in Another Woman via Bergman's frequent cinematographer Sven Nykvist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Speed Hopkins - Art Director, Helen Robin - Associate Producer, Thomas A. Reilly - Associate Producer, Juliet Taylor - Casting, Jeffrey Kurland - Costume Designer, Thomas A. Reilly - First Assistant Director, Woody Allen - Director, Susan E. Morse - Editor, Charles H. Joffe - Executive Producer, Jack Rollins - Executive Producer, Fern Buchner - Makeup, Dick Mingalone - Camera Operator, Santo Loquasto - Production Designer, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Joseph Hartwick - Production Manager, Robert Greenhut - Producer, James J. Sabat - Sound/Sound Designer, Woody Allen - Screenwriter, George De Titta, Jr. - Set Decorator
This article is about the Woody Allen film. For TV movie, see Another Woman (1994).
Another Woman is a 1988 film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Gena Rowlands and Mia Farrow and does not feature Allen in an acting role.
Plot Synopsis
Marion Post (Gena Rowlands) is a 50 year old philosophy professor. She is married to doctor Ken (Ian Holm). Due to construction work in her building, she sublets a flat downtown to have peace and quiet while writing a philosophy book.
In her new flat through a vent, Marion can hear all the private revelations of the clients in a neighboring psychiatrist's office. She becomes particularly fascinated by one client (Mia Farrow) who is deeply depressed and is named Hope (although we never hear her name). The revelations of Hope and her own reflections in life force Marion to examine her own.
She learns from her sister in law that her brother both loves and hates her. She comes to realise that, like her father (John Houseman), she has been unkind and judgmental to various characters throughout her life: her dejected brother Paul (Harris Yulin) and his fragile wife Lynn (Frances Conroy), her best friend from high school Claire (Sandy Dennis), her first husband Sam (Philip Bosco), and her stepdaughter Laura (Martha Plimpton).
She also realises that her current marriage to Ken is unfulfiling and that she missed her one chance at love with his best friend Larry (Gene Hackman). She finally manages to meet Hope and although she wants to know more about her, she ends up talking more about herself, realizing that she made a mistake by having an abortion years ago and that at her age there are many things in life she will not have anymore.
By the end of the film, Marion resolves to change her life for the better.
Background
This film borrows heavily from the films of Allen’s idol, Ingmar Bergman, particularly Wild Strawberries, where the main character is an elderly professor who learns from a close relative that his family hates him. Allen also recreates some of the dream sequences from Wild Strawberries, and puts Marion Post into a similar situation as Isak Borg, where both characters reexamine their life after friends and family accuse them of being cold and unfeeling. This film has many of Allen's signature features, particularly the New York City stamp of the film, only a few scenes are shot outside the city, in the Hamptons. It also uses classical music- Gymnopedie No. 3 by Erik Satie, and poetry- Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke, to serve its narrative, as earlier and later films such as Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Husbands and Wives. It also focuses primarily on upper-middle classintellectual types, as nearly all of Allen’s ’80s films do.
