September (1987) review

Or, Everyone Says I'm Miserable.  Lane (Mia Farrow) is attempting to recover at her summer home in Vermont following a suicide attempt but others show up, including French tutor Howard (Denholm Elliott), her boisterous mother Diane (Elaine Stritch), step-father Lloyd (Jack Warden), her best friend Stephanie (Dianne Wiest) and struggling writer Peter (Sam Waterston) ... and they're all, in their own way, love-sick and sad.  This shows Mr. Allen in what can be referred to as his "serious phase" - influenced by both Swedish arthouse cinema and Anton Chekhov - except it's not a "style" he's altogether comfortable with: apparently he originally shot the movie with one cast, disliked it, and then rewrote it and re-filmed it ... and even contemplated doing it a third time, yet I doubt that would have changed anything, since it aggressively wallows in its self-generated sadness (when the power goes out the true feelings arise) and is full of mostly unlikeable characters.  He was also partially "inspired" by the infamous case of Lana Turner and mobster Johnny Stompanato (who was by killed by Turner's daughter Cheryl), but that element to the story is almost treated as an afterthought.  To maintain karmic balance, his beautiful Radio Days was released the same year ... so everything's good.