The Purple Rose of Cairo

Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo is a brilliant piece of film-making. He combines drama, comedy and even a little bit fiction (people jumping out of movie screens into the real world). Its a great story involving a woman with marital problems played superbly by Mia Farrow. Here Farrow gives one of her best performances, much better than she was in a film i recently viewed called Shadows and Fog. Jeff Daniels is also good in his role as the movie character who comes into the real world, as well as the actor who plays that role. This is by far one of the most complex yet well written Woody Allen flicks. All the performances are good as well as the direction and writing, almost everything is perfect. A must-see for any Woody fan.10/10 #60 on my list of all-time favorite films

The only Woody Allen that I hadn't seen. I was waiting for the opportunity to see it on a proper screen in a proper movie theater, with other people you know, like in the previous century. At the end I was convinced to see it in a friend's living room but in one of those super duper mega wide TV screens. What a delight! A movie about the love of something not quite real but that it becomes the more real thing in our lives. The transportation that Mia Farrow goes through while sitting in the movie theater brought tears to my eyes - my friend turned to me in disbelief "Are you weeping? He asked. Well yes, I was. I can't explain it. Have you seen the movie? Sometimes I felt I wanted to sit next to Mia Farrow in see the movie she's watching all the way through. Why not, Jeff Daniels, Mia Farrow, John Wood, Zoe Caldwell, Van Johnson, please! It's so much better in here than out here. You can bet I will see this again. Top notch.

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

There's no way you can't like the ingenuity of the movie, and the fun it has. It's about the joy of life, and love of the movies, and the difficulty to tell the difference sometimes (at least when in the theater).

In some ways this is one of Woody Allen's lightest movies, and certainly lightweight compared to the more serious movies of this period (like the stunning gem, "Another Woman"). It's not zany like his earliest comedies ("Love and Death"). And it's not deeply observant and sometimes downright moving and brilliant like his best movies (like "Annie Hall" or "Crimes and Misdemeanors"). In that way it feels like what some novelists would call an "entertainment" to distinguish from their heavier masterpieces, and sometimes these are the most readable of all. Or the most watchable.

"The Purple Rose of Cairo" is inventive, warm, and touching. It's really high brow hilarious when the people on the screen react to the situation, not only because of the existential reality shift going on, but because they are all high brow types. Then there are the everyday scenes with Mia Farrow, the lead actress in the real world (usually), and support from Danny Aiello, really just a foil for the main romances (two) going on with Farrow (singular). It's not as complicated as it sounds, which might prove the elegance of Allen's writing.

A beautiful, delicate movie without undo weightiness. Joyous, yes, even in its melancholy end.

A movie I like to recommend to people who really dislike Woody Allen (because of his on-screen characters or off-screen life). And I usually get positive feedback.....he does not appear in this movie, and that makes sense because there really are no characters he could play in The Purple Rose of Cairo. It is a hugely entertaining movie--one of his best. Sharp, hilarious, and poignant. And anyone who can keep a dry eye for that ending must be a machine. This is the movie where Jeff Daniels really gets to strut his best comic stuff. He's always been underrated in my opinion. He's terrific at playing the "Everyman," but in Allen's movie he has a duel role--the clueless movie hunk who leaps off the screen to be with Mia Farrow, and the frustrated actor who plays him. Farrow is also good, back to playing mousey after her bold turn in Broadway Danny Rose. I really can't say enough about this. I would rank it as his best film of the '80s. I never get tired of watching it. I don't like using this adjective, but it seems to fit the movie....it is magical.

Woody's stories are often derivative, but he's forgiven that, usually, because the results are good and ultimately do deserve his signature. For PURPLE ROSE, he swipes Buster Keaton's gimmick in SHERLOCK, JR., then lets his imagination run free as he did in the best of his NEW YORKER stories. We wind up with the most fascinating and realistic meditation regarding what it is to be an audience, a viewer's relationship to art, art's relationship to reality. The triumph is amazing, because, despite the depth of the symbolism, PURPLE ROSE can also be seen as sheer entertainment; on its surface, it is still one of the most entertaining pictures Woody has ever made.

Farrow and Aiello are marvelous here; Mia, who is quite underrated, has only been as good once -- in BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. The photography is superb, influenced perhaps by Edward Hopper with generally less obvious light sources.

Splendid, splendid work.