Three couples in various stages of their relationships visit the countryside around 1900 to spend the weekend at the home of Andrew (Woody Allen), a neurotic stockbroker and part-time inventor.
He is obsessed with renewing his sex life with his frigid and seemingly anorexic wife, Adrian (Mary Steenburgen) but his efforts are complicated by the romantic entanglements of his visitors, including José Ferrer as her elderly cousin Leopold, a pedantic world-famous scholar engaged to Ariel (Mia Farrow), an old crush of Andrew’s.
Also visiting is Andrew’s best friend, Maxwell (Tony Roberts) – a medical Lothario who amuses himself with his office nurse, Dulcy (Julie Hagerty) until he, too, falls in love with Ariel.
It’s a loose adaptation of Shakespeare and Bergman, but also – and probably more so – a quirky mediation on Woody Allen’s pet themes of sex and death.
The jokes come rather thin and slow for a Woody movie, with the result that Allen’s oddball inventions (which include a flying bicycle) are at least as interesting as the oddball people.
Andrew
Woody Allen
Ariel Weymouth
Mia Farrow
Leopold
José Ferrer
Dulcy Ford
Julie Hagerty
Maxwell
Tony Roberts
Adrian
Mary Steenburgen
Reynolds
Michael Higgins
Student Foxx
Adam Redfield
Mr Hayes
Moishe Rosenfeld
Mr Thompson
Timothy Jenkins
Carstairs
Sol Frieder
Blint
Thomas Barbour
Director
Woody Allen
