I did not grow up in a large family—I count among my relations one sibling and a handful of cousins—and certainly not in a blended family. My dear parents were married once, to each other, for 44 years, until my father died in 2010. My mother never remarried. Yet when I recall my childhood and adolescence, I am struck by the sheer clamor that rings in my ears: the talk, the chatter, the ding of kitchen pots and pans, the crash of the backdoor. My father’s whistle upon coming home from a business trip; my mother’s laugh when she saw something funny on TV.
Now, deep into adulthood, I sometimes wonder where all that sound has gone, but I am reminded of it whenever I revisit Woody Allen’s 1986 comedy-drama Hannah and Her Sisters. This film conjures the splendid racket of family life—a rare achievement for its time. Among Allen’s 13 features made prior to Hannah, virtually none portrayed family life with deep curiosity or affection.
The opening scene deposits us into action on Thanksgiving at Elliot (Michael Caine) and Hannah (Mia Farrow)’s Manhattan apartment—a space filled with beautiful furnishings, expensive bric-a-brac, and contented people. There, Lee (Barbara Hershey), one of Hannah’s sisters, joins the gathering. The film’s vibrant family unit features Hannah as the most accomplished sister, operating with cheerfulness while managing financial requests from Holly (Dianne Wiest), whose drug habit and ill-directed ambitions lead to repeated loans.
Elliot begins an affair with Lee, who consents to assignations but remains guilt-ridden: she knows extramarital relations are wrong, especially when her sister is involved. Allen does not validate Elliot’s crush or his boredom with Hannah. Instead, the film emphasizes that life outside the family—a world as presented by Hannah—feels at least three-fifths Hobbesian: solitary, nasty, brutish.
The ending shows restoration on another Thanksgiving. Elliot and Hannah reconcile, Mickey (Allen’s character) marries Holly, and they are expecting a child. As Pauline Kael noted in her positive review, “This celebration of family is essentially a celebration of sanity and of belonging to a group.” The film earned Oscar nominations for Caine, Wiest, and Allen for Best Original Screenplay, becoming a decisive commercial success despite Allen’s own admission that he “copped out” on the ending.
Few things are more irresistible than visions of hearth and home.