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The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) More at IMDbPro »

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26 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Fresh and inventive Woody., 29 January 2005

Author: OllieZ from Wolves, England

The Purple Rose of Cairo really does rate up there with Woody's best - from Annie Hall, Manhattan to the earlier, more slapstick efforts, such as Love and Death and Sleeper. Cairo happens to be one of the best 80's movies Woody actually made - Crimes and Misdeameanours and Braodway Danny Rose being other greats.

The reason why I think that Cairo is better than the other 80's efforts is that the idea is really inventive. The movie raises so many questions of reality and fantasy, but does so in a highly surreal fashion. The switching of scenes, from reality to fantasy (movie) made me realise where movies take us as a viewer. Cecelia finds solace in the world of movies and comes up against the decision of which is better - the perfect world of movie, or reality, where things are never certain.

Jeff Daniels is so enigmatic in this movie. Not only as Tom, the screen legend, but as Gil the actor. Two very different characters, both played brilliantly. Mia Farrow is great as usual, and shows how broad her talent is (Broadway Danny Rose and Radio Days - both very different characters. Danny Aiello is good as the lazy slob-of-a-husband, Monk.

Like Radio Days, Woody isn't actually on screen (he narrated Radio Days, mind) and in a way this eased me up. Woody is fantastic when he is on screen, but this film benefited from losing his neurotic nature, and instead concentrated on the era, the love of movies and the complex themes of a movie within a movie. I will admit, some neurosis is retained in the dialogue (talk of morality to prostitutes!) - and this added to the surreal nature of the movie.

This has to be one of my favourite films Woody has directed. Annie Hall probably being my fave, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdeamenours and Sleeper following. Cairo is so constantly fresh and inventive, I couldn't help being captivated during it's short running time. I recommend this to any fan - or any lover of movies themselves. A real treat.

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23 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
One of his Great Ones, 25 July 2002
Author: drosse67 from Virginia

A movie I like to recommend to people who really dislike Woody Allen (because of his on-screen characters or off-screen life). And I usually get positive feedback.....he does not appear in this movie, and that makes sense because there really are no characters he could play in The Purple Rose of Cairo. It is a hugely entertaining movie--one of his best. Sharp, hilarious, and poignant. And anyone who can keep a dry eye for that ending must be a machine. This is the movie where Jeff Daniels really gets to strut his best comic stuff. He's always been underrated in my opinion. He's terrific at playing the "Everyman," but in Allen's movie he has a duel role--the clueless movie hunk who leaps off the screen to be with Mia Farrow, and the frustrated actor who plays him. Farrow is also good, back to playing mousey after her bold turn in Broadway Danny Rose. I really can't say enough about this. I would rank it as his best film of the '80s. I never get tired of watching it. I don't like using this adjective, but it seems to fit the movie....it is magical.

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21 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Allen's best film to date, 30 June 1999

Author: Doogie D from California

Woody's stories are often derivative, but he's forgiven that, usually, because the results are good and ultimately do deserve his signature. For PURPLE ROSE, he swipes Buster Keaton's gimmick in SHERLOCK, JR., then lets his imagination run free as he did in the best of his NEW YORKER stories. We wind up with the most fascinating and realistic meditation regarding what it is to be an audience, a viewer's relationship to art, art's relationship to reality. The triumph is amazing, because, despite the depth of the symbolism, PURPLE ROSE can also be seen as sheer entertainment; on its surface, it is still one of the most entertaining pictures Woody has ever made.

Farrow and Aiello are marvelous here; Mia, who is quite underrated, has only been as good once -- in BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. The photography is superb, influenced perhaps by Edward Hopper with generally less obvious light sources.

Splendid, splendid work.

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
A Classic Woody picture, one of my favorites of his, 18 August 2005

Author: PersianPlaya408 from Milpitas, California

Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo is a brilliant piece of film-making. He combines drama, comedy and even a little bit fiction (people jumping out of movie screens into the real world). Its a great story involving a woman with marital problems played superbly by Mia Farrow. Here Farrow gives one of her best performances, much better than she was in a film i recently viewed called Shadows and Fog. Jeff Daniels is also good in his role as the movie character who comes into the real world, as well as the actor who plays that role. This is by far one of the most complex yet well written Woody Allen flicks. All the performances are good as well as the direction and writing, almost everything is perfect. A must-see for any Woody fan.10/10 #60 on my list of all-time favorite films

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13 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Enchanting bittersweet fantasy...surreal and very original..., 17 January 2007

Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO has got to be one of the most original and inventive of all the films Woody Allen has done--and all the more enjoyable because we're not subjected to the Allen character in the film itself. Instead, we get MIA FARROW (one of her very best performances) and JEFF DANIELS in what has to be the most original role of his career, as the man who walks off the movie screen and into Farrow's humdrum life.

Farrow is the Depression-era movie fan whose film idol walks right off the screen and interjects himself into her life--brightening it, at least for awhile, until the rather downbeat ending. DANNY AIELLO, as Mia's abusive husband and DIANNE WIEST have good supporting roles, but the story really depends on the wonderful chemistry between Farrow and Daniels--and they truly bring the bittersweet comedy and fantasy to credible life.

Furthermore, the script is not only very clever, but the film is technically brilliant in the way it has the film within a film characters on the screen interacting with the movie audience.

Summing up: Stylish mixture of comedy and fantasy, fully deserving the many nominations and awards it won that year.

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14 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Nice Mix Makes This Inventive Film Appealing, 19 April 2007

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This was a unique storyline - a character comes right out of the movie screen to join the "real" world - at the time. I've seen several others copy this sort of thing, although it also was done in some silent comedies, too, if memory serves. Nonetheless, it was done well here and I got a kick out of watching it back in the '80s. It's part fantasy, romance, drama, comedy. Woody Allen, who made this movie, is not on screen.

I have found (with one or two exceptions) that I like the best when he only narrated, such as in "Radio Days" and "Sweet And Lowdown." I like it when he leaves the acting to others.

Mia Farrow as "Cecilia" Jeff Daniels does a terrific job in a dual role, playing Tom Baxter and Gil Shepherd. One an actor, the other a "real-life" guy. Mia Farrow is appealing, as she usually was, as "Cecilia." Danny Aiello is another usually-interesting actor who gets your attention no matter who he is playing.

An inventive film that still holds up today.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Another Overlooked Gem from Woody Allen, 21 December 2005

Author: ijonesiii from United States

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO is a lovely, funny, and heartbreaking entry from Woody Allen that still remains one of my favorites. This romantic fantasy tickles your funny bone and tugs at your heartstrings at the same time and I go through a myriad of emotions whenever I watch it. Mia Farrow stars as Celia, a depression era housewife, trapped in a dead end marriage to a pig (Danny Aiello) whose only escape comes from going to the movies. She goes to see the movie of the title several times and then at one show, the main character in the movie (played by Jeff Daniels)speaks to Celia directly from the screen saying, "You must really love this movie, don't you?" The character then walks off the screen and into Celia's life, claiming that he loves her and wants to be with her forever. Meanwhile, the actors in the movie on the screen are stuck and don't know what to do because they can't finish the movie without Daniels' character and they are seen conversing with each other about what to do and to the audience in the theater, who for some reason, sit and watch the actors on the screen trying to figure out what to do. Further complications arrive when the character starts walking off the screen in other theaters around the country and the actor who played the character (also Daniels) arrives in town to try to convince his character to go back in the movie. Woody doesn't delve into the territory of fantasy too much, but this one totally works with one of his most intelligent screenplays and winning performances from Farrow and Daniels and the ending is a heartbreaker. A must-see.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
The Movie Lover's Movie, 10 January 2005
Author: sparklecat

Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" is a film that speaks to the heart of anyone who has been mad about the movies. In a now-legendary scene, intrepid explorer Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) steps off a movie screen and into the life of Cecilia (Mia Farrow), an unhappily married, unemployed, movie-lover. Together, Tom and Cecilia brave the complications of the real world, including the arrival of Gil Shepard, the actor who plays Tom.

Farrow is sweet as Cecilia and Daniels is wonderful in his dual role. Brimming with quotable dialogue, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" toys with reality while maintaining a feather-light touch. This is a valentine to the movies, and more so, to movie-lovers.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Depression-era fantasy, heavily-padded but with lovely moments..., 25 June 2006

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Mia Farrow gives one of her best performances as Cecilia, a Depression-era waitress with her head in the clouds who gets dumped on over and over; after a miraculous situation comes her way and promises a better life, she has to choose between reality and fantasy...although some outcomes are predestined. Luminous Farrow is at her most vulnerable, and writer-director Woody Allen allows her to be funny too, yet the film is a preconceived, bittersweet whimsy about dashed dreams; it's ready-made to collapse. In the interim, we get bland Jeff Daniels in two roles (occasionally working the same scene!), a whorehouse full of romantics, a group of acidly funny movie actors on a theater screen, and Danny Aiello as Mia's abusive husband. The theme of "Cairo" concerns the blurred line between movies and reality--it's a valentine to the magic of the movies--but the central idea plays itself out too quickly, and Allen's sub-plots don't always work (you can sense that he's biding his time). Wonderful production design and music score, some marvelous sequences. *** from ****

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
One of five bona-fide Woody Allen masterworks., 29 December 2007
Author: Graham Greene from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The Purple Rose of Cairo shows us just how vital a filmmaker Woody Allen is when removed from the bumbling, neurotic caricature, who often overwhelms the broader aspects of his work. Along with Love and Death, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanours and Bullets Over Broadway, The Purple Rose... is a bona-fide masterpiece; one of the greatest American films of the last fifty years, and further proof that Allen is a filmmaker equal to the more celebrated likes of Coppola, Spielberg, Kubrick, Scorsese, et al. Like those films aforementioned, Purple Rose demonstrates that Allen can take on board the influence of European cinema and combine it with a style of his own, creating a film that relies heavily on character and conversation, and yet, is totally enjoyable and occasionally very funny.

The script is really one of Allen's best, combining a great and imaginative story with intelligent characters and believable scenarios... while the whole thing is made just that little more enchanting through the evocative recreation of depression era New Jersey, and the mannered, though no less impressive directorial flourishes from Allen. The cast is perfect too, managing to bring Allen's world to life, as well as presenting us with a believable emotional centre on which the director can navigate the more elaborate elements of the plot. Farrow has never been better as the put-upon dreamer swept up in her love of cinema, and, in particular, her dashing "leading man in the making" Gil Shepherd. As a result, the entire film, from almost the first frame to the last, can be seen as a treatise on the idea of escape and escapism, and how these ideas correlate with Farrow's character Cecilia, who, whilst attempting to escape from her life of drudgery, work and her cheating husband, becomes infatuated with Shepherd's latest film (also called The Purple Rose of Cairo) and his character Tom Baxter, a fearless adventurer cast adrift in the complicated world of New York's glittering social milieu.

Allen's script, like his later film Crimes and Misdemeanours, is full of self-reference and contains many different layers that compliment the more obvious elements of the script perfectly. For example, Allen plays with the idea of mirroring; having a character within the film brought out of their natural habitat, and into a world that is completely alien. This is again referenced later when the same character (Tom Baxter) is brought out of that environment for a second time and dragged into the real world. Later, Cecilia is taken back into the film (within the film) on an adventure that mirrors the real life adventure the pair had previously been caught up in, before the third component of the story (Gil) is brought into the world of Cecilia... a place that is completely alien to his world of mansions, film premieres and celebrity parties!! These elements might sound confusing within the context of a review, however, the way Allen so casually places them within the plot is amazing. He never lets his ideas dwarf the story at hand, keeping the focus on the characters, whilst, simultaneously, playing a number of subtle games around them.

The concept of fictional characters invading the world of the living (and vice-versa) is never fully explained, so really, it requires a great leap of faith and a little suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience to really buy into the 'deeper' aspects of the film. As a result, I think the film can be interpreted on two different levels... either the whole thing is just a series of unexplainable phenomenon, making The Purple Rose of Cairo a fantasy film as enchanting as Who Framed Roger Rabbit or E.T., or the whole thing can be seen as a figment of Cecilia's imagination. The film ends in such a way that Allen seems to be suggesting that none of these events ever took place... creating a circular narrative that makes it easy for us to see the journey that the character has (supposedly) undertaken to be completely redundant; something that has merely destroyed her faith in the world more so than before, and perhaps, left her even more desperate to experience the warming glow and friendly familiarity of the nearest cinema screen.

As well as Farrow in the lead, there is fine support from Jeff Daniels as the exuberant character Tom Baxter and his bemused and frantic cinematic creator Gil - who manages to give the film a sense of heart, but also a bitter undercurrent - as well as small roles for Danny Aiello and Allen regular Diane Wiest. There's also some nice cameos from Edward Herrmann, Van Johnson, Zoë Caldwell and Milo O'Shea as some of Tom's bewildered supporting characters, left to sit and (literally) chew the scenery, as they find themselves without their pivotal lead player. The ending might be a little too downbeat for some... not wanting to give too much away, but Alan does have a tendency to leave his characters high and dry, sacrificing the feel good factor in favour of some important life lessons, and the intrusion of real-life's cynical streak.

Regardless, The Purple Rose of Cairo is a fantastic film... one that draws you in with it's subtle and believable characterisations and eventually takes you completely by surprise with the deep emotional resonance of the plot. For me, it's one of Allen's masterpieces, and is proof that (along with Bullets Over Broadway) that he doesn't need to be in the film to deliver solid entertainment. It's certainly not as light as say, Love and Death, Annie Hall or Broadway Danny Rose, but it is lighter than the likes of Interiors, Another Woman and Manhattan. As a result, it'll probably appeal to the kind of people who don't normally appreciate Allen's particular blend of cinema, but really, regardless of personal tastes, this is a fantastic film.

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