Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that a lot of the movie deals with an innocent, fictional character, from a Golden Age Hollywood film (with morality dictated by studio censorship) suddenly faced with the real world, where people don't fight fair, where despair and unemployment and prostitution exist, and where sex is more than just a fadeout -- resulting in some innuendo-laden dialogue. Adultery is a large part of the plot, with Tom beseeching the married heroine to leave her loutish husband for him.
Families can talk about the many layers of the comedy here, and the depiction of Depression-era movies (that filmmaker Woody Allen obviously cherishes) as a form of escape from dismal reality. How might this plot have worked out today? What would you have done in Cecilia's place, faced with Prince Charming suitors in both the imaginary and the actual world? Is Tom Baxter right to equate his scriptwriter with God? Do you think the film ultimately makes a positive statement or a negative one about Hollywood and its ways?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
"He's fictional, but nobody's perfect," enthuses the waiflike Cecilia (Mia Farrow) about her new boyfriend in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, a whimsy by Woody Allen that seems like a valentine -- with some doubts -- to the 1930s movie industry and its glossy black-and-white make-believe that uplifted the downtrodden, Depression-era audiences. Grown-ups can take this breezy comedy as both a tribute to and a cautionary tale of women who love movies too much. Kids can enjoy it as one the many fish-out-of-water plots, in which a fantasy-film archetype like Starman's alien or Splash's mermaid or Encino Man's caveman has to deal with the 20th-century real world. And Woody Allen fans will get their fill of his clever dialogue, tinged with existential angst and uncertainty around the edges.
Cecilia is an unassertive waitress in New Jersey, married to an unemployed jerk (Danny Aiello) who treats her roughly and, it's strongly hinted, carries on with other women on the side. Cecilia watches Hollywood movies obsessively, even after she's fired from her job, for their glamour and fairy-tale escape from day-to-day drabness. One movie, called "The Purple Rose of Cairo," captivates her in particular. She watches it repeatedly -- so much that eventually the main romantic lead character on the screen, a wealthy poet-adventurer named Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) notices Cecilia right back. He falls in love with her, and steps out of the movie (for instantly turning full color, though it's a B&W picture), leaving his castmates up on the screen baffled, unable to move their plot forward.
Cecilia tries to show the ever-upbeat and gallant Tom around the real world, where things aren't always fair and sex isn't an abstract, unseen concept. Tom tries to be Cecilia's off-screen hero too, but his riches in prop movie money are worthless here. Meanwhile, the character's defection has upper-echelon movie-industry executives in a panic, fearful that other fictional characters, or maybe other Tom Baxters in innumerable 35mm prints of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" all over the country will start coming to life and roaming around. They summon the actor who portrayed Tom, Gil Shepard (Daniels again), to fly to New Jersey and somehow find and bring his unruly creation under control. Just like Tom, Gil also winds up romancing Cecilia, and urging her to leave her husband for him, too.
The gimmicky premise pays off in a number of very funny scenes (the film-within-the-film characters of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" arguing with each other and their producers over what to do next is a standout in absurdity), but there's also a wistful quality about the film, its sepia-toned settings, and an ending twist that puts into sharp focus the idea that true love and happy endings exist more often in movies than in real life.
Younger viewers, especially those not into the time period, might be restless that the farce here is more about dialogue, relationships, and concepts than special effects and action. But maybe you could pare this with a less thoughtful but oddly similar blockbuster that went after mainstream audiences several years later, with all the action money could buy, literally, The Last Action Hero. Ask which one they like better and why. For another fantasy-meets-reality movie try Pleasantville, also with Jeff Daniels.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentTom Baxter, as a fictitious 1930s Hollywood character, only knows as much about sex as studio censorship permits, and there is much talk of this, especially when he walks into a brothel and gets propositioned, with all kinds of kinky (but non-clinical) suggestions. |
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ViolenceOne fistfight. |
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Language"Douchebag," "whorehouse," and "hell" uttered. |
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Social BehaviorTom Baxter is a stalwart movie hero, devised to be courageous, faithful, and polite -- so much so that he even charms some pretty cynical characters. The actor who created Tom, however, turns out to be two-faced. Cecilia, though trapped in a marriage she no longer wants, still chafes at the idea of leaving her husband (though part of this might be her waiflike and unassertive qualities). The 1930s movie characters shown include a somewhat stereotypical black maid. |
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CommercialismBrief references to real-life movies of the 1930s. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCharacters drink and smoke, both in reality and in the movie-within-a-movie (though the fictional ones have to use prop ginger ale). |
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