“For our twentieth, I got her some very beautiful handkerchiefs ... I didn’t even know her size.”
The plot line is relatively straightforward – a middle-aged Manhattan couple, Larry (Woody Allen) and Carol (Diane Keaton), are intelligent, cultural and comfortable. They begin to suspect their neighbour of killing his wife. Yet the intricacy of how he went about it and the entwined subplots of marital uncertainties and struggles, carry the film past being duly predictable and in to a comic thriller of unfolding discoveries. It may be occasionally over-dubbed by fuzzy jazz records, but there are moments as thrilling as Hitchcock’s Psycho, diffused by Allen’s nervous disposition and turmoil of discourse with the over imaginative and inquisitive Carol.
Their interactions begin with the suspicious husband next door, and his soon-to-be-dead wife. One evening they begin chatting in the hall and soon find themselves dragged away from their cosy plans and sitting through the formalities of polite small talk. Allen complains afterwards, having faked a scrupulous examination of the neighbours stamp collection: “Yes it’s my favourite thing in life - to look at cancelled postage.”
We are quickly integrated in to the scenario by the comfortable banter and squabbles between Larry and his wife. They chat unreservedly with friends, revealing an air of worldliness and self-assurance that come with middle age. The rift between Larry and his wife being that he is reluctant to believe her mad murder theories and rebukes her rash behavior. He jealously notes that his friend Ted indulges her in the mystery with open encouragement and leering ulterior motives. Carol meanwhile, snubs Larry’s glamorous work colleague Marsha, who seems intent on solving the mystery herself and impressing both men in the process.
“We could be living next to a murderer Larry!..”
“WELL NEW YORK IS A MELTING POT, GET USED TO IT.”
One of my favourite Allen films/ witty, engaging, delicious.
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