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Among Woody Allen’s talents his versatility is seldom commented on. Praise for his adaptability to fantasy is even rarer, his outputs in the realm being lumped into that increasingly broad pile known as ‘Woody Allen films’. But his skill for fantasy is considerable. The Purple Rose of Cairo was mesmerizing as were elements of Shadows & Fog.
But he also made Alice, which is also a fantasy and not so mesmerizing. It stars Mia Farrow (in one of their last collaborations before the whole sorry mess between the two got in the way of their partnership), as Alice Tate, a woman who from the start was living a fantasy life, dreaming of adventure and romantic attention. Her husband (William Hurt) is a workaholic and her home life is in chaos.
Also seldom mentioned is Allen’s love for observing ritzy New Yorkers through cock-eyed lenses just as he is now watching European aristocracy, Cassandra’s Dream being his first picture devoted to the working-class. The Tates are rich, their living room holding what was the closest thing to a plasma TV in 1990. But their dynamics are in shambles. Mr. Tate has no time for his wife or his children and Alice has time for everyone but herself. She can barely sit down at the hair salon before having to run off and pick up her kids. It’s time for help from the other side and Woody Allen loves mysticism, including cursed jade scorpions, mediums that can deliver scoop about the afterlife, and hypnotists. So did Fellini and in his Juliet of the Spirits, a neglected housewife found mysterious powers after a séance. In Alice, which is inspired by Fellini’s film, the other side is represented in the Far Eastern incantations found in New York’s Chinatown.
Alice travels there to visit an acupuncturist (Keye Luke) with phenomenal powers that can alter her life. She can now become invisible, talk to ghosts, and fly over the city. But Alice has a hard time getting started. Allen has done this kind of thing better before and after this film. Alice is only mildly interesting and not fun.
The supernatural (like when Mia Farrow first turns invisible) is presented matter-of-factly and treated quickly as a means for a gag. She stalks a man (Joe Mantegna) she met while taking her son home and instantly took a liking to. She enters his room and watches him interact with his ex-wife. But throughout this scene and around the film, Allen maintains a rendition of his usual style (complicated adult relationships) and never let’s the magical elements take over as he did so wonderfully in Purple Rose of Cairo.
Alice feels like a surprise picture that keeps us waiting and waiting and, worse, we never even know what we are waiting for. There are some good bits. There is an effective allusion to A Christmas Carol when Alice encounters the ghost of an ex-boyfriend (an unrecognizable Alec Baldwin) and a nice bit when he takes her flying over New York City at night, giving her a glimpse of her life before she made some bad decisions that ended her happiness. But what are all these unworldly adventures leading up to?
What’s most interesting about Alice goes almost unnoticed. Joe Mantegna’s character is not pretentious and enjoys life’s simple pleasures. That’s why Alice is attracted to him. He is the opposite of her husband who is never satisfied despite being successful. But is Mantegna really a nice guy? Is he playing her? Why does he encourage her to cheat on her husband?
Alice misses its chance to explore these humanizing questions. Its problem may be that it runs two stories that do not meet at the same point. Alice begins an affair with her dream man after obtaining magical powers but it isn’t the magic that brings them together and that eventually makes her see the error of her ways. The magical elements exist on a separate narrative plain and the two plot strands have little to do with each other. In fact, the more we watch Alice the more the supernatural begins to look like a mere gimmicky selling point. To be sure, it is a point that needs to be sold. Without it, Alice is a bland story of adulterers complicated by mumbo jumbo images of confession booths and muses appearing out of nowhere. With these two mismatched forces fused together, Alice has nothing to do but fizzle out.