Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Wow! Who would have thought Woody Allen would have ever produced this kind of movie? Extending the returning winning streak of great films he began with in 1993 after spending the late 80's and early 90's mired in morose drama, "Deconstructing Harry" is both a swipe at his detractors as well as himself. This is NOT your average Woody Allen film. It is profane, obscene and vulgar in its content and dialogue. As the main character, Woody is unlikable, selfish and morally bankrupt. However, it boasts an all-star cast put to great use. There is a unique editing and narrative method employed, great one-liners, and it is executed with Woody's usual comfortable confidence. Overall, it is an absolutely hilarious journey.

Woody portrays Harry Block, an alcoholic, pill-popping, whore-frequenting writer whose thinly-veiled books that account the lives of his family & friends provide for successful stories but leave him at great odds with nearly everybody in his life. Harry soon learns that the college that once expelled him (for giving the Dean's wife an enema, it seems) is now honoring him for his literary contributions to the world. Harry brings along a sympathetic hooker, an ailing friend, and his son, whom he has half-heartedly kidnapped from school. Upon driving to the university, Harry begins to evaluate his life. Communicated in flashback, Harry reflects on the numerous relationships he's wrecked with his gluttonous ways and how he shamelessly incorporated those experiences into his novels, at the expense of others (the film showcases how these events happened in his own life, or how they appeared in the book - with different actors playing the fictional equivalents of his friends & relatives. It is a fantastic device, and Allen utilizes it to frenetic effect).

Only the truest of Woody Allen fans will recognize this as one of his best films. Supposed fanatics clamoring for the sophisticated insights of "Manhattan" and "Hannah & Her Sisters" may be disappointed here. This is Woody Allen in a raw, unpolished form (which may account for the jerky, quick-cut editing). This is a battle-weary Woody emerging from the wreck that was his personal life in the early 1990's to give a big middle finger to his interrogators. The stellar cast does wonders, especially Woody regulars Caroline Aaron and the always-hysterical Judy Davis. Billy Crystal serves up his usual dry humor in a dual role as Harry's best friend as well as his fictional vision of the devil ("You ever f**ked a blind girl? Ah, they're so grateful.") Allen does a great job of examining a man who is a failure at life but a success in his art. We'll never truly know how much of this is autobiographical, but it is a rare, fierce achievement for Woody Allen. Proceed with caution!

Fmovies: It's a shame that so much negative criticism focuses on Deconstructing Harry's bad language, because this is one of Allen's funniest, smartest and most perceptive films. In fact, it may actually be his best film full stop – only Manhattan and Crimes and Misdemeanours can challenge Harry. But although the bad language and crudity may affect some people's enjoyment of the film, for me, as someone who loves bad taste, it's a major benefit, especially as it's a side of Allen we rarely see. I mean, we're used to the romantic Allen and the neurotic Allen, and we've even had serious Allen, but here you have Allen almost becoming Philip Roth. It's very enjoyable to watch.

In this film, Allen's alter ego is Harry Block, a writer in the mould of Philip Roth who, in the words of one his exes, turns everyone else's suffering into literary gold. And this assertion is corroborated by the opening scene, a section from one his books where a man and a woman who are having an affair, during a barbecue, decide to have sex in a bathroom while their spouses are eating in the garden. It's a very funny scene, especially as an attempted blow-job is interrupted by a false alarm (the woman grinds her teeth when the man spots his wife) and as some doggy-style sex is interrupted by the woman's blind grandmother coming into the room (when asked what's happening, the woman tells her grandmother that she's making Martinis while they continue banging away). But while the scene is absolutely hilarious, it does also have a point. This is a scene from Harry's life. He's using it in his work. Therefore his ex isn't too happy to find this episode in his book. Of course, Harry tries to explain that it was 'loosely based' (the grandmother was an embellishment), but that doesn't cut much ice with his ex, who's having all of the sordid details of her affair revealed to friends and family. So the film touches on ideas of a writer's responsibility. What's exploitation and what's inspiration?

One of the most revealing sections of the film is when Harry talks to his therapist. He discusses his attitude to women. "I'm always thinking of f****** every woman I meetÂ… I see a woman on a bus. I think what she looks like naked. Is it possible I might f*** her?" Essentially Harry is a man who has never grown up. He can't commit and he can't sustain a relationship with a woman, a fact backed up by his string of exes and his affection for prostitutes. Indeed, for him, whores are perfect. You don't have to woo them, they don't nag you and they do whatever you want; all you've got to do is pay them. And in the film, Harry takes Cookie, a black prostitute ("Do you know what a black hole is?" Harry asks her. "Yeah, that's how I make my living.") with him to an honouring ceremony at his old school.

Harry also takes a friend along with him and his young son – well, he actually 'kidnaps' his son. And the whole journey, the whole act of going back to remember the past, brings back memories of stories he wrote, stories that are thinly veiled versions of actual events. One of the funniest is a story of a man who married his therapist. At first everything is great, the woman understands the man like no other woman in the world. But once they have a child she becomes "Jewish with a vengeance". No longer is she smart and funny and sexy; all of a sudden she's a dowdy nag who's rediscovered he

In a string of films that recapitulate familiar themes, this one stands out as perhaps the loudest cry of anguish and self-loathing, and it's a comedy.

Where Woody Allen has paid serious hommages to other artists' bleak "heaviosity" (his word) and inevitably come up short, here he does a blistering comic riff on two of the greatest films of the 20th century, Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" and Fellini's "8½."

The parallels to the Bergman film are obvious and much discussed. The bits of Fellini are less often recognized, including the complaining wife, the impossible mistress, other people's demands creating a totally chaotic existence, closing with a yearning fantasy of getting everybody in his life together in one place and time to create harmony and wholeness. In Woody's version, we even have a double for Mia in the reunion, as if some kind of healing reconciliation were possible.

So Woody hits the wall, looks at his life, can't stand any of it and rips the bark off his own skin. What can seem like self-indulgence in other films is not forgiven here. He writes scathing, vituperative attacks on himself for other character's mouths and the viewer can only gape.

Lots of fun, but not for the whole family.

The only mystery is why, at the time I write this, Imdb singles out such a lame misfire of a slam for the first page of this movie's entry. Just about anybody else who has posted has a better understanding of the film.

Deconstructing Harry fmovies. Very funny, very coarse, very Woody Allen. This movie not only has autobiographical elements, Harry Block to a large extent is Woody Allen himself. I think never a director exposed the weaknesses of his own "ego" as mercilessly as Woody did in this film, descending into the deepest layers of the "id", into the very depths of hell (literally, with all the molten lava and sulfur smoke that go with it)! But Woody Allen covers this merciless exercise of psychoanalysis with a thick cover of humor. It is also a very funny movie!

Deconstructing Harry is Woody Allen's masterpiece. The editing is unlike anything else Allen has done, full of little cuts which give the movie a level of abstraction that raises you above the narrative thread. It was instantly my favorite Allen film and has remained so ever since. Praised when it came out for its unflinching honesty, it eschews the self-glorifying cuteness of his other quasi-autobiographical movies such as Stardust Memories and Annie Hall and even Manhattan.

The main conceit of this movie is that Allen's character, writer Harry Block (get it?), meets his alter egos and other characters from his writing as though in real life. Block's characters have been modeled with almost no attempt to disguise them on his relatives and ex-relationships, which infuriates and sometimes devastates them. You have to follow very carefully to distinguish the "real life" relatives from the alter egos who spring to life from the pages of his books.

Block has many very seamy weaknesses and peccadilloes which he readily admits and indulges without remorse. His "real life" relatives and exes submit him to scathing criticism and resentment, while their "fictional" counterparts contribute a more dispassionate and omniscient commentary on Block's misdeeds and poor judgment. The cast is among Allen's most star-studded and uniformly brilliant. It's always fun to watch actors appearing in their only Allen film, and there are many here. My favorite is Billy Crystal, who plays a friend of Block's who stole his lover--and also appears as the devil giving Block the cook's tour of the tenth circle of Hell.

To maintain this complexity of voices requires brilliant writing, and Allen does not disappoint. My favorite quote is:

Doris: Your whole life, it's nihilism, it's cynicism, it's sarcasm and orgasm.

Block: You know, in France, I could run on that slogan and win.

If I were one for condescendingly dogmatic assertions, and I'm not, but if I were, I would tell you that if you do not love this movie, you are watching Woody Allen movies for the wrong reasons.

For the record, rounding out my top five Allen movies are: Mighty Aphrodite, Bullets Over Broadway, Small Time Crooks, and Stardust Memories, with honorable mention to Shadows and Fog.

I'm sure some people wouldn't agree with me, but this movie is a great piece of art on film. Like Hitchcock, Coppola, and others, Woody Allen is a real cinema artist. He makes great use of the possibilities of cinema without losing himself in expensive special effects.

Of course cinema is a medium to create a near-perfect realism on a fictional story. But it can also be an artistic medium. Playing with the possibilities. An example in this film is Robin Williams. A men who is 'out of focus'.

The story is, like most films, not very original. A character that struggles with his personality and social life. But unlike most movies, you can see an artist made this film. It's a Woody Allen creation. His own style, his own characters, his own humor. Not a collection of an expensive scriptwriter with an expensive director, an expensive special effects team , an expensive director of photography etc. to make a total non-personal creation for the big public. Of course the whole crew did a perfect job, but it is surely a Woody Allen film!

A great movie with a nice plot. Some nice switching in timeline and fiction / reality (for the story that is) makes it more interesting then the story really is. Also the jumpcuts, the camera movement, the cast and the humor are making this film a must see! Even if you are not a Woody Allen fan you will like this movie. If you are a fan of big blockbuster movies (standard Hollywood confention movies) this movie is a must see as well! Not only to see the real art of cinema (something different then perfect special effects) but also just for a nice evening and some good humor.