A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy [DVD] UK

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Woody Allen, Tony Farentino, Mary Steenburgen, José Ferrer, Robert Greenhut, Tony Roberts, Mia Farrow, Julie Hagerty

A Woody Allen turn-of-the-century tale of love and lust. Three couples spend a 'quiet' weekend together to celebrate one of their weddings. Inventor Andrew (Woody Allen) and Adrian are the hosts, while his cousin Dr Leopold has arrived to marry his fiancée Ariel (Mia Farrow). However, Andrew begins to lust after Ariel, as does Dr Maxwell Jordan (Tony Roberts), who has brought along his nurse, Dulcy. There follows a multitude of seductions and sexual misadventures with the bride and groom saying 'I do' to everyone but each other.

Woody Allen's 1982 homage to Bergman and Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a delight from start to finish and must rate as one of his most joyous films. The period setting--Edwardian up state New York--gives the whole thing a misty, elegiac quality.

Part Midsummer Night's Dream (the magic supplied by visions through a spirit glass) and part Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman's source material provides the basic plot and ensuing couplings), it's a gentle satire on male sexuality and frustration. Allen handles the angst with the lightest of touches. He plays a Wall Street broker who spends his holidays inventing flying machines (they work, with telling consequences). He and his wife (Mary Steenburgen) are increasingly depressed by their ailing sex life. Cue the arrival of weekend guests: crusty academic (Jose Ferrer) and beautiful blue-stocking fiancée previously in love with Allen (Mia Farrow, of course); and insatiable doctor (Tony Roberts) with his latest squeeze, a nurse (the excellent Julie Hagerty). Eighty minutes of unravelling, discovery and renewal follow, accompanied by a Mendelssohn sound track. This is one of Allen's most treasurable pictures.