Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Directed by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen, Martin Landau, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, Joanna Gleason, Claire Bloom, Caroline Aaron, Jenny Nichols, Martin S. Bergmann. [PG-13]

Deeply cynical yet affecting exploration of a Dostoyevsky moral conundrum related to sin and guilt as told through parallel stories of divergent tones and viewpoints. In one, Landau’s ophthalmologist is carrying on an affair with a woman (Huston) who’s threatening to spill the beans to his wife, so he considers murder as a solution; in the other, Allen’s unhappily-married documentarian falls for the associate producer (Farrow) working for his condescending brother-in-law (Alda). As pessimistic as it is hilarious, as honest as it is unexplainable, and Allen never so much as blinks (let alone relents, or throws a nudging elbow). It’s as intelligent and (sadly) realistic as any film he’s ever made, and it’s also immediately involving, carving out the sort of lived-in characterizations he’s known for, but giving them a sense of purpose instead of a smattering of everyday ambiguities; there’s no wasted space, and he crafts a clockwork plot that can’t be fully seen until it’s all over, after the two principal characters finally meet by chance for a brilliant final scene. Landau is the standout of a well-chosen cast, and it’s the most difficult role to play, as he needs to sell an almost ubiquitous sense of guiltless conscience, the sort we may tell ourselves could never afflict us, and yet we see it everywhere, day in, day out. First of four collaborations between Allen and photographer Sven Nykvist (who had worked often with one of Allen’s most profound cinematic inspirations, Ingmar Bergman). Daryl Hannah has an unbilled cameo.

96/100