Classic Movie Review: Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry

The films of Woody Allen tend to be united by several common themes. Just about all of his films deal with love, relationships and infidelity in one way or another. Many of his films are largely viewed as semi-autobiographical. Or at the very least the characters played by Allen seem very much to be variations on his real life persona. Somehow he manages to unite several of these major themes in the hilarious and deeply philosophical Deconstructing Harry.

When last I saw it during its theatrical release in 1997 I was a Woody Allen amateur. More than a decade later I’ve seen all but one of his 39 feature films, so revisiting it now was quite a treat. It’s still one of most sharply funny movies, written in dialogue littered with great wit and insight.

Allen plays Harry Block, a writer suffering from writer’s block as he prepares to accept an award from his old university. In the meantime, he spends time reflecting on his past wives and girlfriends, the cheating, the deceit and also the characters in his book, who very closely parallel real life.


Just about every character in the film also has a fictional counterpart within the fantasy segments, so this is one of the largest casts Allen has ever assembled and he fills the roles with recognizable names and faces aplenty: Judy Davis, Julie Kavner, Kirstie Alley, Demi Moore, Mariel Hemingway, Billy Crystal, Elisabeth Shue, Philip Bosco, Eric Bogosian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobey Maguire, Stanley Tucci, Amy Irving, Robin Williams, Bob Balaban, and look carefully to spot Paul Giamatti and Jennifer Garner in early roles. The details of the plot are far too complicated to lay out here, but suffice it to say that the issue Harry (and Allen) grapples with is how far we can go as artists in reflecting real life in our work? How much can the line between the two worlds be blurred? In fact, two of Harry’s fictional characters cross over to show him real life scenes he would not have been privy to, a la Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

This is not Allen’s first R-rated film, but it is the only one that comes to mind with crass language. There are more than a few f-bombs dropped and Harry uses the c-word a couple of times. Language like this hardly seems natural crossing Woody’s lips, I must say. And with the exception of a giant tit chasing people around squirting them with milk in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, this is the only Allen film I can think of with nudity (a scene in hell includes topless women, of course).

The foul language may seem odd coming from Allen, but it makes two scenes in particular much more effective. One of these is when Lucy (Judy Davis) barges into Harry’s apartment with a copy of his latest book which depicts the most intimate details of their failed relationship using very thinly veiled characters and situations. Lucy is livid and her string of obscenities proves it. The other involves his wife Joan (Kirstie Alley), a psychologist, when she finds out he’s been having an affair with one of her patients. This scene has some of the funniest dialogue in the film. I had no idea Alley had it in her, but she is positively brilliant in this scene. Given the track record of Supporting Actress nominations coming out of Allen’s film I’m surprised there wasn’t one to be found for either her or Davis.

Harry Block is completely narcissistic, without any regard for the feelings or circumstances of those around him. He tries desperately to get an old flame to forgo her impending marriage simply because he has suddenly decided he loves her. He depicts the lives of those who were at one time quite close to him as the subjects of his writing because he needs to use his art as a way of working out his personal demons. I suppose most artists use their art to similar ends. Certainly Allen’s films have always had the feel of being very personal and I’ve always wondered how much of his own life he puts on the screen. Mia Farrow has said that their final film together, Husbands and Wives, had similarities to the breakup they were going through at the time of filming.

Viewed in that way, Deconstructing Harry winds up looking like a very sad story of a lonely man destined to push away everyone who cares about him. But I wouldn’t worry too much about Allen himself. He’s still got a legion of admirers in spite of his personal character flaws. As long as he remains the director of classics like Annie Hall, Manhattan and this one, he can go on exploiting his personal life for his art as much as he wants.