Movie #: 194 Title: Crimes and Misdemeanors 1990

Rating: 9.00

Director (last): ALLEN (first): WOODY

Writer (last): ALLEN (first): WOODY

Judah Rosenthal is a successful optometrist with a wonderful wife and children and a tremendously successful practice in New York. But he also has a mistress, Dolores, who is becoming increasingly determined to marry Judah, something that can only take place if Judah divorces his wife. Judah, not surprisingly, doesn't want to end his marriage. He is finally compelled to turn to his brother, Jerry, who has underworld connections, for a drastic solution. But Judah is an intelligent, moral man, and he struggles with the question of whether life is just, if he will be punished for this evil act. In a parallel story, Cliff Stern (Allen) is a documentarist who consistently eschews the cheap, the vulgar, and the commercial, at personal and professional expense. He pursues a woman, Halley Reed, whom he thinks shares his high principles. But she is involved with a callow television producer, Lester (Alan Alda). Cliff meditates on the injustice of this, and Allen delicately brings the two parallel stories together at a wedding reception. This is Allen's usual witty way of raising fundamental questions about life, morality, and truth. There is a very powerful scene when he recognizes that the woman he has been idolizing has fallen for the shallow Lester, and all he can do is stare in wonder. Is life just? Answer: no. So how can we live? Resign yourself to the intolerable and find joy in the things you can. This is about as modern a sentiment as you can get.

Is this movie a "gem"? No

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Added: 1990-01-01 [yyyy-mm-dd]