And nor does this film.
Woody Allen’s 1982 film A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is one of the lesser films in the Allen oeuvre. It carries through most of the major themese that have captured his attention throughout his career: marriage; love; infidelity; the inexplicability of attraction and lust. But this time they are manifested in a rather unique approach.
The usual pantheon of Allen characters is represented, to be sure. Allen himself plays Andrew, another version of the nebbish; Mia Farrow (making her first of 11 appearances in a Woody Allen film) is Ariel, the highly desirable woman; Mary Steenburgen is Adrian, the potentially jilted wife; Tony Roberts is Max, the lecherous best friend; Julie Haggerty is Dulcy, the nymphet; and the great José Ferrer is Leopold (such a bold name for a bold part), the pragmatic intellectual. But what’s unique is the setting of a country house in the late 20th century and the adhesion to metaphysics and mystical happenings.
The unusual (for Allen) period setting allows him the freedom to toy with metaphysical idea through his character as an eccentric inventor of a device that may be able to look into past, present and future. This device feels like it works better in a far off time than if it had been a contemporary setting.
But on to the plot. Like this film’s namesake in the Shakespeare canon it is a farce involving characters meeting for trysts in the woods and some mystical underpinnings. Although no wood sprites or fairies make any appearances we might say that perhaps their presence is always felt.
To quickly sum up the round robin, the weekend begins with three couples gathering for the wedding of one: Andrew and Adrian are married but having a down cycle to their sex life; Max and Dulcy are on a weekend fling; Ariel and Leopold are the engaged couple. Andrew once had a lustful infatuation with Ariel, but didn’t act. Max has fallen in love with Ariel and Leopold now has a lustful attraction to Dulcy. Got that?
Allen’s screenplay plays Andrew and Leopold against each other as foils. Leopold is a pragmatist, refusing to believe in things not directly observable in nature, while Andrew is more open to the metaphysical as his device demonstrates. Allen somewhat awkwardly attempts to draw a connection between the metaphysical aspects of the natural world and love, infatuation and attraction. The characters mostly act with uninhibited abandon with regard to the opposite sex. What causes that? Is it something natural or something similar to the forces that guide the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? However, Allen doesn’t employ magic potions a la Shakespeare’s popular comedy.
As silly and lighthearted as it is, Allen fails to demonstrate with this film what his intent was. It’s too often slipshod and whimsical, with far too little comedy given the title. It’s got its moments of decent chuckles and is sure to make you smile more than a few times, but it doesn’t deliver the same kind of consistent laughs that have come to mark his best work throughout his esteemed, though uneven, career.
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