The plot of Racine's "Andromaque" has been described as "A loves B, who loves C, who loves D, who loves E, who is dead". I wondered if this was an influence on the plot of "September", which features a scarcely less complicated string of unrequited love interests. Howard is in love with Lane, who is in love with Peter, who is in love with Stephanie, who is not sure whether she is in love with Peter or not. Lane is the owner of the New England country house in which the action takes place (obviously enough during the month of September). Howard, a teacher, and Peter, a struggling writer, are neighbours. Stephanie is Lane's best friend. To add to the confusion, Stephanie is married, although her husband does not appear. Two other important characters are Lane's mother Diane and her stepfather Lloyd.<br /><br />"September" may have been written and directed by Woody Allen, but it is not what we have come to think of as a Woody Allen film. For a start it is not a comedy, or even a tragi-comedy like "Melinda and Melinda" or "Crimes and Misdemeanours", both of which combine a serious story with a humorous one. It is quite deliberately made as a deeply serious film, unrelieved by humour. As in a number of Allen's films from this period, such as "Crimes and Misdemeanours" or "Alice", the predominant colours- browns, greys and dull yellows and oranges- are dark or sombre ones. The best way I can describe it is a play written by a would-be Chekhov adapted for the screen by a would-be Ingmar Bergman.<br /><br />Indeed, Allen described it as "a play on film", and it certainly comes across like a piece of filmed theatre, set entirely indoors with a great number of long takes and few close-ups. Unfortunately, it shows just how dull and boring this style of film-making can be at its worst. There is no action, no sense of movement or character development, just a group of unsympathetic individuals interminably talking over their emotional problems. It might only last for eighty minutes; it felt more like eight hundred.<br /><br />Mia Farrow gave some wonderful performances during her association with Woody, but here she as Lane and Dianne Wiest as Stephanie seem to be competing as to which of them can seem more whiny and miserable. Nobody seems to have told Elaine Stritch that this was supposed to be a serious drama rather than a comedy, as she plays Diane as an over-the-top comic caricature. The male half of the cast are rather better, but none of them are outstanding and Sam Waterston as Peter is nowhere near as good as he was to be in "Crimes and Misdemeanours". Allen actually shot the film twice, replacing several cast members for the second version. Diane was originally played Maureen O'Sullivan (Farrow's real-life mother), Howard by Charles Durning and Waterston was only the third choice for Peter after Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard. I wonder what was so bad about the original version.<br /><br />During the course of the film, we learn that Diane was once a well-known actress, and that many years ago Lane, then a teenager, was supposed to have shot dead Diane's abusive boyfriend. I found myself wondering why Allen did not base his film around this incident, which would surely have made for a more dramatic film that the one he actually made. The reason is presumably that this detail was plagiarised from the life of Lana Turner, whose boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was indeed killed by her daughter Cheryl in self defence, and as Lana was still alive in 1987 too much attention to the incident could have resulted in a writ from her lawyers. As Diane is a hard, brassy, self-centred individual, I also wondered if the use of this particular Christian name was a spiteful dig at Diane Keaton, Farrow's predecessor as Woody's muse.<br /><br />What makes the film even more disappointing is that it came out during a period, the late eighties, which also saw three of Woody's best films, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdemeanours". If one judges solely on the basis of a lack of jokes, "September" is more "serious" than any of these films, which all contain a good deal of humour. On the basis of intellectual depth, however, it is the least serious of the four. The other three films all broach weighty philosophical topics, but do so with intelligence, wit and style to produce something of far more interest than the emotional angst and lovesickness which lie at the heart of "September". The nearest it gets to intellectual depth is Lloyd's attempt to use the laws of physics to prove that life is pointless. Woody should do what he does best, not try to be Chekhov or Bergman. And certainly not Einstein.<br /><br />When I reviewed "Melinda and Melinda" I wrote that none of Woody Allen's films are entirely without interest. I had obviously forgotten "September". But then it is an entirely forgettable movie. The song exhorts us to "Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow". This "September" may be slow but it is far from mellow. The kind not worth remembering. 4/10