Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

HotToastyRag Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Sam Waterston, Elaine Stritch, Denholm Elliott, and Jack Warden make up the cast of Woody Allen's dramatic film September. If you've only seen Woody Allen's comedies, you'll be very surprised by how heavy he can get.Elaine Stritch plays Mia and Dianne's mother, and they make up a typically dysfunctional family, with lots of secrets, resentments, betrayals, and unfortunate love that binds them all together. Mia falls in love with Sam, but Sam becomes infatuated with her sister instead, adding more tension to the mix. The acting in this movie is pretty incredible, but, as is sometimes the case with heavy dramas, it can be tough to watch. This probably won't end up being your favorite movie, but at the very least you'll be able to appreciate the performances. If you're a fan of any of the actors, add this one to your list.

ElMaruecan82 Howard (Denholm Elliott) loves Lane (Mia Farrow), Lane loves Peter (Sam Waterston) and Peter loves Steffie (Dianne Wiest).All the people in 'September" - so true-to-life I wouldn't call them characters - vehicle a certain idea of love, as a living form that grows or diminishes with time, as a desire to be loved and love to be desired. Steffie is Lane's closest friend, to break up with her marital routine, she joins her in a summer house in Vermont; she then meets Peter, a struggling write who got very close to Lane. Steffie knowingly flirts with him as a way to test her own appeal, and she succeeds too much: Peter is devoured by passion.Lane inspires the same emotions in Howard, the self-effaced and well-meaning neighbor. A widower, Howard knows he can provide Lane all the love, the time, and more practically, all the money she needs. But Lane is not interested. As Roger Ebert stated: how can't she understand Sam's feelings while she has identical ones toward Howard? This is the very essence of "September" narrative, the film is about mixed and ambiguous emotions, all guided by and to love. We all need to love someone, but love can mislead us, as even the most exciting conquest are followed by the dullest aftermaths, for desire can never be totally fulfilled.There are two other major players in "September", a married and faithful couple: Diane (Elaine Stritch) and Lloyd (Jack Warden). Diane is the brassy somewhat offensive mother of Lane, she used to be a sex-symbol in her prime and after many martial failures, she finally chose Lloyd, a physicist, as her rest of life's partner. Maybe the secret of their couple is precisely due to the fact that she was a star once, and Lloyd can reassure himself by thinking he's with a woman who used to be one of the most desirable. And she has an excuse to still take her desirability for granted, if she doesn't spend too much time contemplating the decline of her youthful beauty in the mirror.Diane has passion; she's the house's living force and her exuberant nature easily contrasts with the other characters, more restrained in their emotions. One of the recurring themes of "September" is survival, the capability of people to keep strong. Peter wants to write a novel about his father, who exemplified the notion of survival, but after hearing Diane's exciting stories about her past, including a sordid assassination case that left an indelible trauma in Lane, he wants to write about her. To Lane's much displeasure, for again, her mother steals her thunder, but this is not a mother-against-daughter drama, not a generation gap, but a conflict of attitudes. Diane is a survivor because she remains true to herself, Lane is, despite herself.Ironically, Lane is also a survivor, she went through a traumatic childhood, living in her mother's shadow and even tried to commit suicide. The reason of her failing is that she just wants to live, she has her mother's strength beating in her heart, she wants to be as strong as her, but needs a vehicle to her emotions, someone who'd share the same feelings, the same passions … she finds that in Peter, only to be disappointed. But, she doesn't mourn the end of a romance, but another struck of misfortune. She can't stand the idea not to have what she wants … again, and again.The film ventures through human emotions during one last weekend of summer, after a stormy night when lights are turned off, candles provide a romantic setting. Alcohol helping, people start behaving more closely to their personality, and we understand it's a matter of time before true feelings can be declared, before true emotions can outburst. The directing, the dialog are so calm, in a realistic and mature way that we're waiting for more demonstrations, for people facing their own responsibilities. But like in many serious dramas, sometimes, the aftermath, no matter how delivering it is, matters less than the beginning.It's what people feel, what they truly expect, their motives, fears and fantasies that remind us of our own condition, our own attitude to life. We wouldn't react like all the characters, but each one represents a part of our personality, some can take it, some can't, some abandon, some fight … we all try to survive in a way or another. In another melancholy-driven scene, Lloyd complains about his job and the disillusioned aspect of science where even the most beautiful things have explanations, it's even more depressing because they all concur to the idea of meaninglessness, futility and randomness.This randomness is like the movements that regulate people's hearts. Haven't we ever wondered what if we didn't meet our love-life? Well, other hazardous circumstances would have lead us to another person, and we would never have thought about another eventuality, should we feel guilty for that? Life is tricky indeed, and just because we meet someone, we're still transported by hazard. Basically, "September" is a film about hearts swinging back and forth, guided by the random and no less exciting ballad of life, and like the stars, just because their randomness doesn't deprive them for their beauty."September" is Woody Allen's second drama after "Interiors", another movie where people meet and share different views on life together, in a house, isolated from the rest of the world, as if only isolation could provide enough perspective from the world to let us contemplate our inner condition. And I guess that after the great streak of the 80's, maybe Woody Allen needed to question again his his status as a serious author through dramatic themes like ageing and its problematic compatibility with success, love and passion.The more I revisit his serious films, the more I concur to the idea suggested by an IMDb user: this is the kind of movies Woody Allen should be making today.

James Hitchcock The plot of Racine's "Andromaque" has been described as "A loves B, who loves C, who loves D, who loves E, who is dead". I wondered if this was an influence on the plot of "September", which features a scarcely less complicated string of unrequited love interests. Howard is in love with Lane, who is in love with Peter, who is in love with Stephanie, who is not sure whether she is in love with Peter or not. Lane is the owner of the New England country house in which the action takes place (obviously enough during the month of September). Howard, a teacher, and Peter, a struggling writer, are neighbours. Stephanie is Lane's best friend. To add to the confusion, Stephanie is married, although her husband does not appear. Two other important characters are Lane's mother Diane and her stepfather Lloyd."September" may have been written and directed by Woody Allen, but it is not what we have come to think of as a Woody Allen film. For a start it is not a comedy, or even a tragi-comedy like "Melinda and Melinda" or "Crimes and Misdemeanours", both of which combine a serious story with a humorous one. It is quite deliberately made as a deeply serious film, unrelieved by humour. As in a number of Allen's films from this period, such as "Crimes and Misdemeanours" or "Alice", the predominant colours- browns, greys and dull yellows and oranges- are dark or sombre ones. The best way I can describe it is a play written by a would-be Chekhov adapted for the screen by a would-be Ingmar Bergman.Indeed, Allen described it as "a play on film", and it certainly comes across like a piece of filmed theatre, set entirely indoors with a great number of long takes and few close-ups. Unfortunately, it shows just how dull and boring this style of film-making can be at its worst. There is no action, no sense of movement or character development, just a group of unsympathetic individuals interminably talking over their emotional problems. It might only last for eighty minutes; it felt more like eight hundred.Mia Farrow gave some wonderful performances during her association with Woody, but here she as Lane and Dianne Wiest as Stephanie seem to be competing as to which of them can seem more whiny and miserable. Nobody seems to have told Elaine Stritch that this was supposed to be a serious drama rather than a comedy, as she plays Diane as an over-the-top comic caricature. The male half of the cast are rather better, but none of them are outstanding and Sam Waterston as Peter is nowhere near as good as he was to be in "Crimes and Misdemeanours". Allen actually shot the film twice, replacing several cast members for the second version. Diane was originally played Maureen O'Sullivan (Farrow's real-life mother), Howard by Charles Durning and Waterston was only the third choice for Peter after Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard. I wonder what was so bad about the original version.During the course of the film, we learn that Diane was once a well-known actress, and that many years ago Lane, then a teenager, was supposed to have shot dead Diane's abusive boyfriend. I found myself wondering why Allen did not base his film around this incident, which would surely have made for a more dramatic film that the one he actually made. The reason is presumably that this detail was plagiarised from the life of Lana Turner, whose boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was indeed killed by her daughter Cheryl in self defence, and as Lana was still alive in 1987 too much attention to the incident could have resulted in a writ from her lawyers. As Diane is a hard, brassy, self-centred individual, I also wondered if the use of this particular Christian name was a spiteful dig at Diane Keaton, Farrow's predecessor as Woody's muse.What makes the film even more disappointing is that it came out during a period, the late eighties, which also saw three of Woody's best films, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdemeanours". If one judges solely on the basis of a lack of jokes, "September" is more "serious" than any of these films, which all contain a good deal of humour. On the basis of intellectual depth, however, it is the least serious of the four. The other three films all broach weighty philosophical topics, but do so with intelligence, wit and style to produce something of far more interest than the emotional angst and lovesickness which lie at the heart of "September". The nearest it gets to intellectual depth is Lloyd's attempt to use the laws of physics to prove that life is pointless. Woody should do what he does best, not try to be Chekhov or Bergman. And certainly not Einstein.When I reviewed "Melinda and Melinda" I wrote that none of Woody Allen's films are entirely without interest. I had obviously forgotten "September". But then it is an entirely forgettable movie. The song exhorts us to "Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow". This "September" may be slow but it is far from mellow. The kind not worth remembering. 4/10

moonspinner55 Mia Farrow plays suicidal Lane, a child-like woman hoping to sell off the family cottage in Vermont so she can start life anew in New York City; she's surrounded for the weekend by her married friend (Dianne Wiest), a charming, struggling writer (Sam Waterston), an elderly neighbor who harbors a crush on Lane (Denholm Elliott), and Lane's demonstrative mama (Elaine Stritch) and her latest husband (Jack Warden). Seems mother and daughter were once the subjects of a scandalous murder-trial from years ago (shades of Lana Turner and daughter Cheryl), and Lane's emotional showdown with her mother provides an intense acting moment between Farrow and Stritch. Claustrophobic Woody Allen drama was one of the writer-director's biggest commercial and critical failures (he filmed it twice with two separate casts--this is the second version, the original remains unseen). It's a nearly-humorless study of the dangers of repression, yet the picture doesn't learn from itself--the handling is repressed as well--and few of these characters seem improved by the finale. Allen's languid pacing nearly comes to a halt during an electrical storm (at just 85 minutes, "September" doesn't exactly utilize its time wisely); however, this group of privately-tortured souls is as fascinating as the family in Allen's "Interiors." In fact, of the two films, this may be the better effort. *** from ****