Crimes and Misdemeanors

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) runs two separate stories side by side: one a murder, the other a comedy. Judah is a respected ophthalmologist. He has had an affair for years and the woman is threatening to tell his wife everything. He asks his brother for advice and his brother offers a solution. Judah accepts. In the second story an unsuccessful documentary maker named Cliff has to film a portrait of a self satisfied television producer, and is in love with the same woman. The two stories never cross; they meet only at the same wedding in the last scene. The real question is what a crime becomes if nobody sees it and nobody punishes it. Judah suffers for months and then it passes. The film leaves that without a lesson, and the discomfort comes from there. There is also a blind rabbi; a man who believes the moral order works, losing his sight across the film. That is deliberate. Martin Landau was nominated for an Oscar as Judah. Allen substantially reshot the film after a first cut. It is counted as his most serious and darkest work. It runs 104 minutes. Good for: moral drama, Allen's serious side, and character cinema. Less good for: it is dialogue heavy, slow, and offers no consolation.