User Reviews

"The Purple Rose of Cairo" poetically defines what it means to love movies through the story of Cecilia, an ordinary woman whose cinematic passion plays as a back-and-forth ticket to escape from the Great Depression (literally).

But this era also coincided with the Golden Age of Hollywood films : adventure movies, romances, screwball comedies or films-noir, the decade started with an immediate transition from the silent era to the talkies, allowing so many genres to finally emerge on the screen. And people came to see movies because of this constant capacity to surprise, to create new worlds, to become the ultimate escapism with a popular appeal, incarnated by the magical opening image of Astaire and Rogers dancing "Cheek to Cheek". Cinema is ordinary people living extraordinary moments.

This is what loving movies is about, and this translates Cecilia's obsession with films as a desperate need to forget about her lousy husband and her waitress' job, two situations she handles with a poignant, if not annoying, clumsiness, beautifully embodied by Mia Farrow's natural vulnerability. Cecilia, like anyone, can go to the movies, but more than anyone, she needs them. The only bits of enthusiasm in her voice and her eyes are hinted when she talks about movies, and her shy heart suddenly becomes passionate, only a movie lover can understand this weird state of constant amazement.

Cecilia's endearing quality also is her poignant weakness, as she uses movies to fantasize on improbable love stories the way women used to do with literary romances. Cecilia enjoys films in an old fashioned way, not an intellectual appreciation or some sort of quest for a deep meaning. This is the nostalgic aspect of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" , an ode to these times where distraction and amusement were simple, when people's eyes were easily amazed and their hearts easily thrilled, when Cecilia needed to watch the titular film, over and over again, to forget about the job she just lost, and the husband (Danny Aiello) she couldn't lose. In a way, the film's atmosphere foreshadows the tone of Woody Allen's "Radio Days" with an extra fantasy element (literally again)

Cecilia indeed lives in a fantasy that spectacularly materializes on the pivotal moment where "The Purple Rose" hero emerges from the screen to finally meet her, provoking a chaotic situation that none of the audience or the still on-screen characters can handle. And this is where Allen's genius writing emerges too, when I applauded, excited to see where would lead the romance between Cecilia and Tom Baxter, the explorer, played by the actor Gil Sheperd, played by Jeff Daniels. And Allen's approach is subtly iconoclast in the way it totally denudes the characters by underlining the gap between their unreal qualities and the real world.

First fascinated, we start looking at them with very compassionate eyes. Tom is like a child impressed by this world, his life freed from any script's diktat, but whose journey with the prostitutes reveals him as an asexual character ... no money, no sex, no religion, Baxter's Utopian background betrays the Disney-like innocence of these old movies and the dead-end aspect of his real-world adventure. The irony is that he mirrors Cecilia's own condition, as a woman with no job, no money, not even a sexual life, so she would be living the same life with Tom but happily. So the process in reversed and Cecilia gets in the film to live with Tom, in a world where the only colors inhabit Tom and Cecilia's hearts.

But as much as we enjoy seeing the thought-provoking inventive script exploited to its core, this part only reflects the dream-like quality of the movies, as illustrated in the most hilarious moment in the film, when the restaurant maitre d' realizes he's allowed to do whatever he wants, and starts a spectacular tap dance number. It reminded me of these lucid dreams where you allow yourself to go as far as you can, movies are nothing but artistic lucid dreams, after all. And the most delightful ones lead to the most painful wakes, and I consider the script to be one of the best thanks to the genius idea of confronting Tom Baxter with Gil Shepherd who, in an ironic twist, pretends to be in love with Cecilia in his attempt to convince his alter-ego to get back to screen.

What follows is a love triangle and a cruel dilemma for Cecilia, torn between an unreal and a virtual reality, virtual not as the opposite of real, but of actual, of Cecilia's current life. What is virtual is potential, might happen and will happen, and this is where Cecilia's fragile naivety conditions the sad conclusion of the film, confirming that nothing in Allen's scripts is irrelevant. Cecilia chooses Gil over Tom, Tom understanding real life's cruelty gets back on-screen and Gil to Hollywood after having accomplished his mission, with Cecilia as a collateral heart's damage. Realizing her one-way ticket to Paradise was phony, she sadly returns back to her husband who warned her that life was not like the movies. Allen just furnished the cynical proof.

Cecilia was obsessed with unreal stuff, while her heart was broken by something virtual, because of her trust on a real man, not a character, this is the alibi for movies, and Allen's ending with Cecilia enjoying again the sight of Astaire and Rogers proves that she doesn't blame it on the movies. The bittersweet last shot shows Cecilia as one of these poor souls, not heroic in their acts, but in their faith in humanity and people, despite the encountered treacheries and deceptions, the ending reminds of "Night of Cabiria", Fellini's masterpiece about another woman's heart victim of her own goodness.

And despite all the hell Cecilia went through, her illuminated eyes prove that with movies, she'll always have her back-and-forth ticket for Heaven, even for one short moment, she'll feel she is in Heaven ...

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.

Spoilers herein.

Woody makes films about films and how they create life. Each project adopts a different set of ideas he finds, so the whole body of work is a sort of encyclopedia of notions about self-reference and folding. In a way, what films you like are determined by what set of ideas you use in your own home world of film.

This one is often compared to `Sherlock Jr,' where a projectionist enters the world of film. There is a framing element of that notion here, with Mia's fantasies. The fantasy we see is the other way around, which is more clever: the world of fiction entering the `real' world.

It's an amazing idea, until here always found in science fiction in the form of `virtual' or artificial beings seeking a more human existence. Mapping it to film is an imaginative leap. It is as if the viewer creates something that in turn creates the viewer.

Everyone lives in their own movie, and for most of us that movie controls us.

Inside that film world, Woody comes up with some clever ideas: each screen has its own world, parallel with the other instances of that film. The characters are aware of repeating each instance; some would rather be doing something else. Without a script, they are lost.

At this point, Woody was changing girlfriends, and switching therapists from Freudian to Jungian. It shows.

Ted's evaluation: 3 of 3 – worth watching

Mia Farrow is the wife of an unemployed bully and womanizer Danny Aiello. She works in a diner, and when she tries to forget her lousy life in the Depression she turns to the movies. Currently she is seeing a "B" feature again and again called THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, about a bunch of bored socialites (Edward Herrmann, John Woods, Zoe Caldwell, Van Johnson) who go to Egypt for a change. They meet an archaeologist played by Jeff Daniels, who is trying to find a mythical flower (the one of the film title) that will lead to a true love. We see Farrow go again and again to the film until Daniel starts noticing her and asks if she really likes the film that much. This unsettles Farrow who leaves the theater. But she returns and she sees that Daniel is interested in her. Interested enough to leave the film, much to the consternation of Herrmann and the other characters in the film because they are trained by the fact that they were shot in a way by the film company and edited to follow the same pattern forever. So the characters are at a loss at how to continue. Also they can't leave the film (as Daniel did).

Allan is one of the few directors brave enough to look at philosophical situations in his film. Here it is the odd rules governing reality and falsity. The world of the movie is as rigid as that of the real world, despite the cinematic Daniel's discovery of color and real space in the outside world. The real world requires real training (not the idiotic false title the cinematic Daniels has as a so-called archaeologist) and real money (Daniels has fake money on him from the movie set). But the characters in the film are losing their mind for being unable to go ahead with the plot without Daniels. That is some of them are: the actress playing the African-American maid in the movie becomes more real in her not acting like a female stereotype (she takes off her shoes and plots down on a couch, to the dismay of the others).

The revolt sensed by Daniels stepping out of the screen spreads consternation in other worlds: the theater management and the movie company see it as a threat of left wingers trying to undermine the American film industry. Indeed, we hear that other copies of the film have incidents elsewhere in the country. The film company sends the real Daniel to the site where his character came to life, and soon it is Daniel v. Daniel wooing Farrow. Who will she choose - and will she choose wisely, between a naive fictional character who adores her and a man of flesh and blood and potential, who is ambitious and devious? But what is wisdom in such a choice?

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO is one of those films that makes one look twice at reality in the world we inhabit, and the world that we seek to enter through our imaginations. It is an exceptionally clever film, and a very funny one. Certainly one of Allan's top five movies.

Academy and Golden Globe award winner. Excellent blending of color and black and white. Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels are the star-crossed lovers. The only problem with their romance is that she is already married to a "do-nothing" lazy and abusive husband and Tom Baxter is fictional. He jumps off the movie screen from a typical Depression Era romantic comedy into the Real World. He isn't real. He doesn't even know how (and probably can't) make love. His money is fake and he can't start a real car. The actors left on the screen (in black and white) have absolutely nothing to do and other "Tom Baxters" are trying to walk out of the movie in other cities. So, the real actor flies to New Jersey, and tries to fix it all to save his career and the movie studio from embarrassment and ruin. He pretends to fall in love with Cecilia (Mia); it is all an act and she chooses the real actor Gill (Daniels) as poor "Tom" walks back into the movie. Gill flies back to Hollywood alone, as he only loves himself. Life goes on, and the devastated and unemployed diner waitress "Cecilia" goes back to the movie house to see Fred and Ginger dancing "Cheek-to-Cheek" in "Top Hat". Realistically filmed in a small New Jersey town, a closed amusement park, and an old-fashioned-looking diner. A fast and fascinating 82 minute movie. Done rather "straight" considering the subject matter. Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels have great chemistry together. Also with Van Johnson and Edward Hermann. More romantic than comedy. Not your typical Woody Allen movie and perhaps better because of it.

Woody Allen from Annie Hall through to Crimes and Misdemeanors really was a master of his art. Everything he took on whether it be romance, comedy, mockumentary, or fantasy, he managed with unparallelled panache and creativity. In The Purple Rose of Cairo he delivers a film that is so wonderfully balanced between the lines of fantasy and reality that it truly strikes at the heart of cinematic genius.

The basic plot is that Cecilia, played by Mia Farrow, is unemployed and in an abusive marriage in the midst of Depression-era New Jersey, and her one method of escape from the drudgery of her surroundings is via the movies. One day whilst watching her favourite film for the fifth time one of the characters suddenly starts interacting with her and from there starts a chain of events that range from the absurd to the deeply touching, handled in a way that only Woody Allen could pull-off.

It may be easy for younger cineastes to underrate Woody Allen and his contribution to cinema based on the Luke-warm fare that is now attached to his name but for anyone curious about one the most inventive, hilarious and brilliant film directors to have emerged in the entirety of cinema's history, watching films like this one will reveal just how brilliant Woody Allen is at his best.

This film is a meditation on the nature of existence, reality and love, reflecting on the merits of escapism versus the value of acceptance of reality, whilst also being extremely entertaining and immensely original and creative.

It should also be mentioned that Mia Farrow's performance is one of the most enchanting I have ever witnessed. What a lovely and wonderful film created by one of cinema's greatest talents.

10/10