Looking back on it, Interiors is one of the most drastic 180 degree
turns that any cinematic director has taken. Coming on the heels of
his Oscar-winning romantic comedy, Annie Hall, and prior to that, several
really funny flat-out laugh fests like Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death etc.,
he turned to a film which was entirely dramatic and in fact a Bergmanesque homage,
deliberately recalling the Swedish Master in both form and content. Yet
Interiors was not just an homage. It was a coming-out party of sorts for Allen. It was a film that would allow him to explore other darker dimensions of the human
existence, the likes of which he would return to again in everything from
Manhattan, to Hannah and Her Sisters, Another Woman, September, Crimes and
Misdemeanors, and even Match Point. It’s not just Allen’s best dramatic film though,
it stands as one of his best films period.
Interiors concerns an extended family. Geraldine Page stars as Eve, who
had three daughters….Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), and Flyn
(Kristen Griffith) and is an interior designer. Her marriage to Arthur (E.G.
Marshall) started falling apart after she had a nervous breakdown
and other psychological problems. References in the film to Eve’s ice-cold
demeanor and calculated intentions throughout her daughters’ upbringing have
left the 3 daughters floundering in their adulthood and in their relationships.
When Arthur announces he’s splitting from Eve to “take a break”, it leaves Eve
on the brink of suicidal despair, even though she hopes they will get back
together again. After Arthur returns from a trip from Greece along with a woman named
Pearl (Maureen Stapleton) with intentions to marry her, it sets the family on
end.
Allen’s film examines all sorts of relationships here: husband to wife,
father to daughter, mother to daughter, and sister to sister. It is remarkable
how deeply the film examines the human condition in its most paralyzed, impotent
state. So many of these characters are lifeless and cold, fearful it seems of
even being able to get through the day. Even the set design and costume design,
reliant on grays and tans, is drab and lifeless. Allen’s consistent
fascination with death throughout his career is something he had in common with Ingmar Bergman, and it’s no wonder that Allen would
make a film like this at some point. Allen also wants us to recall Bergman in those tremendous scenes near the end of the film
at the beach house which recall Bergman on the island of Faro in so many films. But it feels
like a springing-off point for Allen, not just an exercise, using his quick wit to
inflict insults and verbal injury here in Interiors, where in Annie Hall those
efforts were used to inspire laughter.
Allen’s sense of pacing is terrific, building to a climactic
wedding party and fateful night at the beachhouse in winter, complete with gray, crashing waves. Pearl’s attempt to rescue a nearly drowned Joey,
whilst wearing a bright red, waving nightgown allows for a striking use of thematic color. In fact more than once Pearl appears in the film is bright red, which is
just about the only time the color shows up at ALL in the film. This use of
red highlights her passionate and fun existence, exemplified by her
discussions on rare steak, card tricks, and her carefree dancing, which are
in complete opposition to the mother figure as portrayed by Eve, who is cold,
anxious, fearful, regretful, bitter, and suicidal. This display of the
human condition, the great acting turns from Page, Hurt, and Stapleton, and
Allen’s rightful choice of utilizing Gordon Willis to create some spectacular
cinematographic compositions make this one of Allen’s truly memorable films,
and places right near the top of his canon.
