The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Waste of time

How sad is this?

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

I've always ranked Woody Allen's films amongst my all time favorites because they're the perfect blend of creativity and originality, two qualities that are as scarce as they are important in cinema.The Purple Rose of Cairo is a product of the finest quality, I'd say it's Allen at his best. It tells the story of a woman in his late thirties who works at a restaurant to make a living, coming back to a home where an ape-like, macho husband awaits her. Still, she dreams. She dreams of pictures, explorers, poets, a world fairer and more just. The question that is so rooted in our soul, the one that drags us out of our comfort zone and into the abyss every time we try to come up with and answer is...Where is it? Not in this world because there's so much pain and injustice going in it that one wonders if we shouldn't rip the evil apart from what's pure light to give ourselves a chance to behold the light that should guides through the the darkness, into the Promise Land.Is it, then, in another world? I'm' not a religious person although the previous paragraph might make me look like one, therefore I must rule out a religious answer, but that road is opened for you to take it. The answer is CINEMA. Where else could it be.In an attempt to simplify what otherwise could have been a rather difficult topic, the American director mixes both worlds- real and the one portrayed by pictures- by having movies characters coming into ours, and some of us -the waitress- going into theirs.To me me the originality of the idea goes along way to show that both of them are just to sides of the coin.

This is my favorite Woody Allen movie! It's heartfelt, artistic, creative, funny, thoughtful and nostalgic. It's basically a love letter to movies about a waitress who is unloved by her husband, unhappy at work and only finds love in the movies. One day, she watches the latest movie The Purple Rose of Cairo and after watching it the fifth time, the main character literally leaves the screen of his black and white movie and enters reality in technicolor. Soon, the black and white actors are up on the screen screaming for him to return while the movie theater is in panic and the actor playing the character who left the screen tries to get him back on. What an exciting story told with art, thought and entertainment!

Yes, it was a depressing time for many who could only find solace in the movies, and for troubled housewife Mia Farrow, the only way out is her regular visits to her local cinema. One of the characters in the movies notices her repeat visits after she walks out on her husband (Danny Aiello) and is fired from her job, and before you can say, "Action!", he is walking off the screen and grabbing her so he can find life on the outside of the celluloid closet. Jeff Daniels, one of the brightest finds of the 1980's, has such an innocence and spirit in his acting, that after playing the wise-cracking husband of Debra Winger's in "Terms of Endearment" seemed perfect for these types of wide-eyed roles. Of course, he's playing two characters: the character in the movie ("The Purple Rose of Cairo") and the actor, Biff Baxter, who played him, and it must be up to Biff to get his character to return to the screen so his career isn't ruined."Do you really want another guy walking around?" someone asks, while one of the movie characters makes a comment about men who walk around wearing pith helmets. Director and writer Woody Allen kept himself off of the screen for this one classic 80's vehicle, and ends up with one of his very best movies, practically perfect. It is a throw-back to the type of romantic films of the 1930's where the poor girl going through a bad time could find sudden adventure, dream about living a more glamorous life, and yet somehow have a bitter-sweet ending that could bring the hardest of New York audiences to tears, as is the case here. Farrow and Daniels are surrounded by a great supporting cast which includes Dianne Wiest as a big-hearted hooker (in her Woody Allen debut), Zoe Caldwell as a genuine countess with a lot of dough, and Van Johnson as her hanger- on social climber husband. The last two are part of the movie which also includes the typical Jean Harlow hard-boiled not so dumb blonde and a sassy black maid who once she has the freedom to escape from the script questions which one of the wealthy white characters is trying to sucker her. Annie Joe Edwards, who plays this part, would later get some good lines in on Jennifer Tilley in Allen's brilliant "Bullets Over Broadway". There's also nightclub/Broadway performer Karen Akers as the singer who is supposed to end up with Daniels on screen, Milo O'Shea as a priest, Edward Hermann as one of the dashing on-screen characters and that cute little old lady who played around with the Fruit of the Loom underwear boys, Loretta Tupper, playing a music store owner who doesn't say a word but steals a brief scene when Daniels and Farrow come in to her shop. This is filled with a great 30's feel, some fantastic jazzy background music and a finale that is heartbreaking. When Fred and Ginger start dancing as Farrow looks on, you begin to hope that somehow they'll come off the screen as well. Stage legend Caldwell gets some of the wittiest lines in the screenplay, telling one of the audience members to "Stop yapping because we've got problems of our own", and insulting someone else with, "If that's your wife, she's a tub of guts!" Give yourself a little romance, Woody style, because beneath all that bad publicity surrounding his personal life with Farrow in years to come, he had a truly romantic heart which at least got to escape from his brain thanks to his pen.

In the days before watching Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, i thought that the story was going to be an adventure movie about a man who goes to Cairo, Egypt to find a purple rose, but turns out I was sort of right. The movie tells the story of a poor waitress named Cecilia (played by Mia Farrow) who wants to escape her horrible marriage all because of her abusive husband Monk (played by Danny Aiello whose performance is very similar to both Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Robert De Niro in Raging Bull), for which Cecilia watches movies to cheer herself up. One day after Cecilia is done with her waitress job she watches an adventure movie called The Purple Rose of Cairo five times in a row, and during the fifth time one of the characters Tom Baxter (played by Jeff Daniels) ends up escaping the theater screen and into the real world and at the same time ends up falling in love with Cecilia, but when that first happens the movie leaves us with one question and that is how he is going to be put back into the screen in which he escaped from along with the help of Gil Sheperd (again played by Jeff Daniels) who obviously played Baxter in the movie. One time when Woody Allen was asked on what he thought that his film was about and he said "Some critics said that The Purple Rose of Cairo was only about the movies, when I think all this movie is about is the difference between fantasy and reality." though I do agree with both critics and Allen himself. Allen blends both fantasy and reality in a way never seen before with brilliance. This movie is a true Woody Allen classic.