Mia Farrow plays suicidal Lane, a child-like woman hoping to sell off the family cottage in Vermont so she can start life anew in New York City; she's surrounded for the weekend by her married friend (Dianne Wiest), a charming, struggling writer (Sam Waterston), an elderly neighbor who harbors a crush on Lane (Denholm Elliott), and Lane's demonstrative mama (Elaine Stritch) and her latest husband (Jack Warden). Seems mother and daughter were once the subjects of a scandalous murder-trial from years ago (shades of Lana Turner and daughter Cheryl), and Lane's emotional showdown with her mother provides an intense acting moment between Farrow and Stritch. Claustrophobic Woody Allen drama was one of the writer-director's biggest commercial and critical failures (he filmed it twice with two separate casts--this is the second version, the original remains unseen). It's a nearly-humorless study of the dangers of repression, yet the picture doesn't learn from itself--the handling is repressed as well--and few of these characters seem improved by the finale. Allen's languid pacing nearly comes to a halt during an electrical storm (at just 85 minutes, "September" doesn't exactly utilize its time wisely); however, this group of privately-tortured souls is as fascinating as the family in Allen's "Interiors." In fact, of the two films, this may be the better effort. *** from ****

Looking at September I think Woody Allen might have been interested in doing his own version of Long Day's Journey Into Night with this production. The problem is that the characters here are not even half as interesting as O'Neill's autobiographical Tyrone family.

Try as I might I just could not get into this story. Apparently neither could Woody, I see he refilmed the entire story with three different players from those he started with. And he was ready to do it again. Who did Woody Allen think he was, Erich Von Stroheim?

Mia Farrow who was married to Allen at the time is recovering from a nervous breakdown and she's in Vermont at the old family homestead to sell the place. Her famous actress mom, Elaine Stritch is up there as well with stepfather Jack Warden and Stritch has different plans for the place than Farrow does. Also up there are Stritch's prospective biographer Sam Waterston and other friends Denholm Elliott and Dianne Weist. Who could know that Weist would windup as Waterston's boss on Law and Order and that he'd eventually be the boss as well.

Stritch's role is not to terribly disguised as Lana Turner with Mia as Cheryl Crane. I'm surprised that Lana didn't sue Woody Allen. I would have.

Stritch and Warden come off the best, they are at least mildly interesting. The rest you don't really care about as we hear about this one loves that one, but that one loves the other, who loves still another. Except for Stritch who thinks the world revolves around her.

Woody should stick to comedy.

Judging from not liking it very much on first viewing(not been used to how the characters were written and being exhausted after a hard week being the biggest reasons) and that there are people who judge it as one of Woody Allen's worst, re-watching it could have gone either way. In debating if September is one of Allen's worst or his worst, on first viewing I would have said yes but re-watching it while nowhere near one of his best it is not that bad. It's not perfect, it does drag a bit with some dialogue that rambles and the ending is very abrupt. And two performances personally didn't quite come off well, Mia Farrow is very shrill here(even for a character as tormented as she was) and it did grate and Sam Waterson is unusually wooden. However, the rest of the acting is great, especially from Elaine Stritch who gives a poignant performance that did have me weeping. Jack Warden has one of the more interesting subsidiary characters and has fun with it, Denholm Elliot is at his most subtle and sympathetic and Dianne Wiest while not as good as she was in Hannah and Her Sisters(which is one of the greatest performances in a Woody Allen film) is fine as well. Allen directs as adroitly as ever, despite being relatively different thematically dialogue, characters and influences wise Allen's style is still unmistakable. The dialogue has some rambling moments but much of it is incredibly intelligent and thought-provoking as well as truthful in a way that is painful as it is heart-breaking. The characters are not easy to like and are purposefully neurotic but the compellingly realistic way they're written and the situations they go through makes you identify with them too and you feel as if you're there and part of the drama. You will be emotionally exhausted by the story afterwards too, and the story itself draws you in with its themes and its characters and rarely lets go. The Bergman and Chekhov influences are very clear but not blatant. September benefits also from being wonderfully shot, it looks beautiful and stylish and reflects Autumn very well, and from having an evocatively orchestrated and beautifully written music score(one of my personal favourites from a Woody Allen film actually). To conclude, imperfect but a pretty good film, and I take back what I said about it at the end of my The Curse of the Jade Scorpion review, in all fairness it was acknowledged that things could change on re-watch. 7/10 Bethany Cox