Pretty Good

Boring

Admirable film.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Genius. Wonderful. Many of Allen's films tackle the dichotomy between reality and delusion, and this one nails it, better even than the others. Technically, creatively, wittily. I'm staggered by the low 7.7 rating. This film is one of the most ingenious, clever, philosophical movies ever made, and I do not understand why it's not in the top ten of all time. Perhaps it's just because it's too movingly downbeat and melancholy at its conclusion.

Mia Farrow is wonderful as Cecilia, a small town waitress during the Great Depression. Married to a selfish lout named Monk (Danny Aiello), she's often in need of escape. And she finds it in the movies that she repeatedly watches. One day, to the astonishment of Cecilia and everybody in the theatre, movie character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) emerges from his picture and enters the real world. He's become utterly taken with her, and is sick and tired of his dull routine, uttering the same lines over and over. Life becomes even more surreal for Cecilia when Gil Shepherd (Daniels again), the actor who played Tom, comes to the town to do damage control and HE falls in love with her as well!"The Purple Rose of Cairo" is an ingenious concept film, well realized by writer / director Woody Allen. It's utterly charming, especially to any fan of the cinema. Some of the brightest moments happen when A) the other characters in the film-within-the-film become utterly lost, and just mope around, interacting with theatre patrons, and B) the golly-gee-whiz completely naive Tom is taken by prostitute Emma (Dianne Weist) to a whorehouse, where he seems to have no idea what goes on in such a place!The recreation of a Depression era town is effective, as is Woody's emulation of classic 1930s black & white Hollywood pictures. Dick Hyman does the upbeat jazz score, and the excellent cinematography is the work of masterful Gordon Willis.Mia and Jeff are just perfect, with the latter getting to do a memorable scene with the character and the actor arguing with each other. Aiello and Weist lead an excellent supporting cast consisting of talents such as Edward Herrmann, John Wood, Karen Akers, and Van Johnson, and top character actors like Irving Metzman, Milo O'Shea, Robert Trebor, John Rothman, Raymond Serra, and Michael Tucker. Glenne Headly has a bit as one of the hookers.Clever through and through in its melding of reel life and real life, with both fictional and actual people struggling to come to terms with their new surroundings. The finale, however, really does break your heart.Eight out of 10.

New Jersey, mid-1930s. Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is a waitress stuck in a loveless, dead-end marriage to obnoxious, philandering, gambling Monk (Danny Aiello). It's the height of the Depression and life is pretty grim but luckily Cecilia has an escape. She loves going to the movies. The latest movie in town is The Purple Rose of Cairo and after a falling out with Monk, she watches it over and over. While watching it for the fifth time, one of the characters in the movie, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), notices Cecilia and steps out of the movie. All manner of adventures, romance and hilarity ensue.Woody Allen's wonderfully quirky, reverent and creative homage to the silver screen. From the start the movies are shown as a medium to transport people away from their cares and Woody Allen does exactly that with this movie. He does this with a light, whimsical touch but with great reverence.The story is fantastical and Allen's development of it is wonderfully funny. The thought of a character leaving a movie and entering the real world is original and preposterous but Allen doesn't use it as a one-trick pony, taking the concept in many hilarious (and even profound) directions.Wonderful conclusion too, bringing us back to cinema's role in our lives.

This was my first Woody Allen movie. I think there are 4 aspects I can judge a movie on. First one is directing. This movie was directed simple but very effective. In my opinion it is the best kind. The second thing is writing. First of all this is a very interesting concept to me. It deals very well with its themes. I like Woody Allens weird sense of humour but I don't understand what is he about. The third one is acting. This is the one of the first Jeff Daniels roles. He is very kind but nothing spectacular. Music was typical and cliché but I understand that that is the point. If you like movies about movies this is one good, interesting and short (82 minutes) movie you should check out.