Woody Allen
A Midsummer Night's Sex Commedy

THE REVIEW

After a film not well received by critics, "Stardust Memories", Allen returns to a simpler form of comedy and in '82 creates one of his best films labeled "minor".

"A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" is a very light and enjoyable film that mainly draws from its rustic and pastoral plot, works by William Shakespeare such as "Much Ado About Nothing" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It is essentially a romantic comedy, with some bucolic erotic undertones, set in the American countryside just a few kilometers from New York in the early 1900s. Woody thus moves away from the metropolitan and contemporary setting of his more recent films to immerse himself in the rural and pastoral reality that serves as a backdrop to the love affairs of three couples; among loves first hidden and then revealed, partner swaps, and the search for lost pleasure, the director manages to give his audience delightful moments where the neuroses of his characters clash with the peace of the natural world. References to pagan spirituality, woodland spirits, and magic machines lead the director towards a sort of pacification and search for simplicity never fully embraced in his films. The splendid cinematography of Gordon Willis frames everything perfectly, and Mendelsohn's music contributes to the success of the film's atmosphere.

An excellent cast featuring José Ferrer as the old professor Leopold, "Most of the time I realize that violence is the only resource of the primitives", a very young Mary Steenburgen, and a constant presence in Woody's films, Tony Roberts. First film with Mia Farrow; Allen himself plays the role of an amateur inventor "Maxwell, I'm not a poet, I don't die for love: I work on Wall Street"; in '83 he will return with a less frivolous film, "Zelig", and the rest of the decade will be marked by an impressive series of masterpiece films or almost.