Woody Allen’s Interiors aimed higher and accomplished more than anything else the director had previously done. The film takes a kernel — a family in turmoil — and shows how characters are affected by it, as well as how they, themselves, are the contributors to the dissolution. Interiors shocked viewers upon release, for it had exactly zero comedic value, and remains one of the heaviest stories that Woody Allen has written to this day. It is also precisely what is so hated in Allen’s work, for he skewers an ‘upper crust’ family in a way that is both poetic and realistic, thus opening Allen up to criticism because ‘they’ don’t like what they see, or simply do not believe it. And yet, for all the superficial difficulty one might have with ‘getting into it’, it is, at its core, a highly complex and well-wrought drama, full of great characters, interesting symbols (the red dress at end; the black, almost cosmic tape during the first suicide attempt), and some really great psychological interplay between three sisters that would not be equaled until Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

Yes, it’s often been derided as Woody aping Bergman, but while Bergman is clearly an influence, Allen is in no way derivative of him. Interiors partly revolves around art and its misuses; its lack of a ‘savior’ element for the characters (Eve, especially); and many of the personages, such as Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), are completely and inarguably American, in the sense that they suffer through American excess and American leisure; all of which (art’s neuroses included) have become a Woody trademark, not a Bergmanian one. Joey, in particular, is a true and fully realized ‘type,’ a ponderous, artistic wannabe that, for all of her detractors in print and online, is completely real, and can appear pretty much anywhere in life, as if from the very thinness of the space she inhabits: art cafes, jazz shows, gallery openings, and whatever else might invite such congregation. In short, the film defines its own moments, not Bergman’s, a truth which has rarely been examined at length. […]