Deconstructing Harry
Release date: 1997-12-12
Votes: 1028
Genres: Comedy, Drama
Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.
Reviews
CinemaSerf
The aptly named "Harry Block" (Woody Allen) is a seriously lapsed Jewish writer suffering from constipation of the typewriter. Adding to his woes is a nervousness about an impending honour from his alma mater (from where he was unceremoniously expelled) and the fact that his personal life makes Henry VIII's look like "Bertie and Elizabeth". Of course, "Harry" is seeing a therapist (Robert Harper) and with just a day before his conferment, he realises that his entire shambolic life is a result of his inability to fall in love. He likes women, he likes sex but he doesn't really like commitment, wanting always to treat a relationship like something he can buy in, or return to, Walmart. That's the basis of this story of a flawed individual that using a series of statically directed sit-com style scenarios takes us thorough twenty-four hours in the manic life of the shallow and unlikeable individual. I have never really been a fan of Woody Allen and this did nothing to change that. Granted his writing is quick fired and his observations potent at times, but his sense of humour is just too crass for me. There's nothing at all subtle about it, no cleverness - and the opening scenes of this set a scene for what I thought became increasingly puerile and predictable. A sort of slickly-delivered linguistic slapstick. Vulgar can be fun, but not when it's got some pseudo-intellectual underpinning about cause and effect of an human behaviour that becomes more and more contrived to fit the narrative the auteur wants to deliver. Are the jump cuts just there to divert our attention from the dwindling characterisations and increasing soapy melodrama? He doesn't imbue his character with anything I could care about, and though I did think Judy Davis and a cast of many reliable faces did their best to shore it all up, in the end it's very appropriately titled - it just doesn't happen quite quickly enough.
Movie Recommendation
Mighty Aphrodite1995-09-13When Lenny and his wife, Amanda, adopt a baby, Lenny realizes that his son is a genius and becomes obsessed with finding the boy's biological mother in hopes that she will be brilliant too. But when he learns that Max's mother is Linda Ash, a kindhearted prostitute and porn star, Lenny is determined to reform her immoral lifestyle. A Greek chorus chimes in to relate the plot to Greek mythology in this quirky comedy.More...
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion2001-08-10CW Briggs is a veteran insurance investigator, with many successes. Betty Ann Fitzgerald is a new employee in the company he works for, with the task of reorganizing the office. They don't like each other - or at least that's what they think. During a night out with the rest of the office employees, they go to watch Voltan, a magician who secretly hypnotizes both of them.More...
The Thing About Harry2020-02-15Two high school enemies, uber-jock Harry and out-and-proud Sam, are forced to share a car ride to their Missouri hometown for a friend's engagement party on Valentine's Day. Things take a turn when Sam learns Harry has come out.More...
Celebrity1998-09-07The career and personal life of writer Lee are at a standstill, so he divorces his bashful wife, Robin, and dives into a new job as an entertainment journalist. His assignments take him to the swankiest corners of Manhattan, but as he jumps from one lavish party to another and engages in numerous empty romances, he starts to doubt the worth of his work. Meanwhile, top TV producer Tony falls for Robin and introduces her to the world of celebrity.More...
Sleeper1973-12-17Miles Monroe, a clarinet-playing health food store proprietor, is revived out of cryostasis 200 years into a future world in order to help rebels fight an oppressive government regime.More...
Small Time Crooks2000-05-19A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.More...
Love and Death1975-06-10In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.More...
Take the Money and Run1969-08-18Virgil Starkwell is intent on becoming a notorious bank robber. Unfortunately for Virgil and his not-so-budding career, he is completely incompetent.More...
50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments2011-07-27To mark the release two weeks ago of the eighth and final movie in the series, Robbie Coltrane narrates a countdown of the movie franchise's best moments. From Harry's first meeting with Ron and Hermione aboard the Hogwarts Express through to magical mysteries.More...
Everyone Says I Love You1996-12-06A New York girl sets her father up with a beautiful woman in a shaky marriage while her half sister gets engaged.More...
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd2003-04-14This wacky prequel to the 1994 blockbuster goes back to the lame-brained Harry and Lloyd's days as classmates at a Rhode Island high school, where the unprincipled principal puts the pair in remedial courses as part of a scheme to fleece the school.More...
Who's Harry Crumb?1989-02-03Harry Crumb is a bumbling and inept private investigator who is hired to solve the kidnapping of a young heiress which he's not expected to solve because his employer is the mastermind behind the kidnapping.More...
Harry and the Hendersons1987-06-05Returning from a hunting trip in the forest, the Henderson family's car hits an animal in the road. At first they fear it was a man, but when they examine the "body" they find it's a "bigfoot". They think it's dead so they decide to take it home (there could be some money in this). As you guessed, it isn't dead. Far from being the ferocious monster they fear "Harry" to be, he's a friendly giant.More...
Flight of the Intruder1991-01-18U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Jake Grafton and his bombardier buddy, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Cole, are two soldiers embedded in the Vietnam War growing frustrated by the military's constraints on their missions. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer, Cmdr. Frank Camparelli, to re-engage them, this disillusioned pair decide to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could well get them court-martialed.More...
The Intruder1962-05-14A man in a gleaming white suit comes to a small Southern town on the eve of integration. He calls himself a social reformer. But what he does is stir up trouble--trouble he soon finds he can't control.More...
The Degenerates1969-03-27A series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. Like the more famous version made by Federico Fellini, an adaptation of Petronius' Satyricon.More...
Deep Crimson1996-09-09Driven by desire and desperate for self-love, Coral and Nicolás will abandon their past lives in a journey surrounded by murder.More...
14 Kilometers2007-11-02Three people looking for a better life become stranded in the desert with little hope of survival.More...
Camera Cafe: The Movie2022-03-25Jesús Quesada, an incompetent executive, is appointed as the new director of a company in decline whose survival will now depend on both the ingenuity and ambition of his former colleagues.More...
Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?1971-06-15Hugely successful but impossibly neurotic songwriter Georgie Soloway is sliding into a mid-life crisis. He believes that all of his past romantic relationships have been destroyed not by his own failings but by the interference of the mysterious Harry Kellerman. Family, friends, and his psychiatrist cannot give him the help he seeks. When his father is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Georgie begins spending more and more time flying his personal aircraft, distancing himself physically, emotionally, and mentally from the real world.More...
Similar Movies
Breakfast at Tiffany'...
1961-10-06Holly Golightly is an eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. But when young writer Paul Varjak moves into her apartment building, her past threatens to get in their way.Arsenic and Old Lace
1944-09-01Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!The Wanderers
1979-07-13The streets of the Bronx are owned by '60s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’Young Adam
2003-09-26A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.The Godfather Part II...
1974-12-20In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.The Godfather Part II...
1990-12-25In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.Pocketful of Miracles...
1961-12-18A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.King Kong
2005-12-12In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with the leading lady.Making of a Male Mode...
1983-10-09Kay Dillon, a successful modeling agent, meets the young and handsome ranch hand Tyler Burnett in Nevada. She can't help but notice his incredible good looks and invites him to move to New York and start working for her as a male model. Burnett accepts the invitation and goes to New York to start his modeling career. But Tyler longs for more in life: a woman to love and his own ranch. Can he remain the biggest male model in the industry, and still get his heart's desires? Is Kay the woman to give all that to him?The Hustler
1961-09-25Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.The Talented Mr. Ripl...
1999-12-25Tom Ripley is a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy U.S. shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his playboy son, Dickie. Ripley worms his way into the idyllic lives of Dickie and his girlfriend, plunging into a daring scheme of duplicity, lies and murder.Stranger Than Fiction...
2006-11-10Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.TMNT
2007-03-23After the defeat of their old arch nemesis, The Shredder, the Turtles have grown apart as a family. Struggling to keep them together, their rat sensei, Splinter, becomes worried when strange things begin to brew in New York City.American Psycho
2000-01-21A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.Shortbus
2006-10-04In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.Me and You and Everyo...
2005-06-17Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.Party Monster
2003-09-05The New York club scene of the 80s and 90s was a world like no other. Into this candy-colored, mirror ball playground stepped Michael Alig, a wannabe from nowhere special. Under the watchful eye of veteran club kid James St. James, Alig quickly rose to the top... and there was no place to go but down.The Coast Guard
2002-11-22A member of Coast Guard Platoon 23, Private Kang monitors a high-infiltration stretch of beach lined with barbed-wire fencing. Driven by the belief that killing a spy is the highest honor, he waits for a chance to prove his worth.The Man Who Loved Wom...
1977-04-27At Bertrand Morane's burial there are many of the women that the 40-year-old engineer loved. In flashback Bertrand's life and love affairs are told by himself while writing an autobiographical novel.25th Hour
2002-12-19On the eve of a seven-year prison sentence, a New York drug dealer spends his final day of freedom confronting his past, his relationships, and the choices that led to his downfall in a city still reeling from 9/11.