Woody Allen, the quintessential New Yawker, goes Greek in his 1995 comedy Mighty Aphrodite with mixed results.
The Woodster’s run the gamut of comedy in his 30-year career—from the Russian Revolution to the neuroses of Manhattan, from Fellini-esque autobiography to a Shakespearean romp in the forest. So why not a Greek comedy, complete with chorus?
Or should I say A Greek Chorus Line? That’s right, those robed and masked figures there in the open-air amphitheater break into song-and-dance every now and then as they relate the sad-but-funny tale of Lenny Weinrib (Allen) and his wife Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter, taking a vacation from Merchant-Ivory).
As Mighty Aphrodite opens, the Upper East Side couple is nattering about whether or not to have a child, a progeny to which they can pass on their self-proclaimed beauty, wit and intelligence (in Allen’s case, just the wit and intelligence). Hubris is just one of the many themes Allen pokes at with his script.
Then someone at the table brings up adoption. Lenny’s initially opposed, saying he doesn’t want to adopt “for the same reason we don’t lease a car—pride of ownership.” But two scenes later, there he is holding a newborn in his arms and fretting over a hilarious list of names in what is perhaps the film’s funniest dialogue.
Amanda and Lenny raise the boy and he turns out to be a brilliant kid (though we’re never really shown any brilliance on camera). Soon, Lenny gets a little curious about Max’s breeding and he heads over to the adoption agency to unearth the parents, certain they’re a pair of geniuses. Make that parent, a single mother struggling to make ends meet as an actress who regretfully gave her day-old infant up for adoption.
I use the term “actress” in the loosest sense of the word. Max’s mom turns out to be the Aphrodite of the title, a porn star turned hooker currently named Linda Ash (though she’s got more aliases than your local check-bouncer) whose one material dream is to own a blue chinchilla coat. The rest of the movie is all about Lenny coming to grips with the fact that his son’s mother once had three-way sex in a movie with an unprintable title. The old nature versus nurture argument was never funnier.
Mira Sorvino plays the empty-skulled Linda with, uh, full-bodied robustness. Initially, I was put off by her choice of voice: a high-pitched breathiness that’s half-swallowed and, like choked-on Coke, comes out her nose. It comes off as mannered and stagy. But, the more time Sorvino spends on screen, the more I found her to be appealing.
This is her breakthrough role, similar to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny—though closer to the latter than the former. Like Tomei, Sorvino has slowly sunk off the Hollywood A-List since her trip to the Oscar podium. Apart from Mimic (1997), she’s been in movies that are best forgotten (At First Sight anyone?), which is a shame because here she displays a good sense of comic timing, even matching the impeccable Woody’s delivery.
The movie is structured like a satire on an ancient Greek tragedy (Oedipus and his mommy make a guest appearance and there's a literal deus ex machina at the conclusion), but the many appearances of the chanting chorus really bog down the pace. With one exception (involving Zeus and an answering machine), I found the chorus to be painfully un-funny. Though I know what Allen was aiming for, I think he missed his mark.
The rest of the film—with the exception of Sorvino’s breathy, shallow call girl—is enough to make a fella want to gouge out his eyes.
Original Title: Mighty AphroditeActors: F Murray Abraham - Michael Rapaport - Mira Sorvino - Woody AllenCondition: NEWFormat: DVDDirector: Woody Allen...More at iNetVideo.com
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