the audience applauded

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

When I first saw Alice, I didn't know it was a Woody Allen movie, but I can imagine if I'd been expecting the usual stammering joke fest, I might have wondered where Woody's influence went. He doesn't always make strict comedies, though, and this movie proves it.Mia Farrow and William Hurt are married, have two children, and live the high-life. But Mia, in the title role, is unsatisfied and she doesn't know why. She visits a Chinese acupuncturist to help with some back pain and enters a journey of self-discovery.Mia does a wonderful job in this slightly off-beat flick. Just as in The Purple Rose of Cairo when she rises above an unhappy marriage and finds herself, she expresses curiosity, sadness, hope, and invigoration all at the right times. I happen to be a Mia Farrow fan, so I was expecting to like this movie, but my mom doesn't like her nearly as much as I do, and she still really enjoyed Alice. As always in Woody Allen movies, there's a large cast, and this one includes Alec Baldwin, Blythe Danner, Cybill Shepherd, Joe Montegna, June Squibb, Julie Kavner, Bernadette Peters, Gwen Verdon, and Bob Balaban. Alice is thoughtful and sweet, and a great movie to watch when you're pondering the universe.

A spoiled Manhattan housewife (Mia Farrow) re-evaluates her life after visiting a Chinatown healer (Keye Luke).So, this film has the interesting historical footnote of being the first films for both June Squibb and Lisa Marie. This is about the best thing that can be said for the film. (Actually, the cast as a whole is pretty darn good.) This is supposed to be Woody Allen's take on "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Well, yes, it certainly is that. But if the lead character was not named Alice, perhaps the viewer would never make that connection. There seems to be less Alice here than there ought to be.One has to wonder about the Mia Farrow years versus the Diane Keaton years. Maybe it is the writing, maybe the directing, but it seems that the Keaton years of Woody's work were so much stronger than the Farrow years. In some films, particularly "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", Farrow is just downright awful.

Alice is not Woody Allen at his best and admittedly I was expecting a little more from it after the brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors(which is top 5 Allen) from the previous year. There are far better developed, more interesting and more identifiable characters in other Allen films, here some were underwritten and a couple like William Hurt's a touch irritating, the titular character was relatively well-developed though. Some of the actors are underused, like Hurt and Judy Davis and Mia Farrow does start off a little too stylised and soft which doesn't make her transformation quite as believable as it could have been. However, quite quickly she becomes very touching and her deadpan comic delivery really shines through, so while with not as strong a start it's actually a good performance. Joe Mantegna turns out good work too, although to a lesser extent he could have been better used, while Keye Luke, Cybill Shepherd and particularly Bernadette Peters and Alec Baldwin(in the most colourful supporting roles) make up an excellent supporting cast. Allen's direction is just right, the film looks beautiful with a dream-like quality at times and the soundtrack is hypnotic. The script and story are a mix of comedy, drama and fantasy, all three balanced well and all three work, with the comedy light-hearted and subtly witty, the drama affecting and not overwrought and the fantasy whimsical and nostalgic-feeling. Working out what was going on and what the film was trying to do and be wasn't a problem for me, and Alice ends cleverly and poignantly. All in all, a lovely film- if not as good as his late 70s-80s films- and a good start to Allen's 90s output though better was to come from that decade(Husbands and Wives, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Bullets Over Broadway). 8/10 Bethany Cox

Not one of Woody Allen's best. Has its moments but the plot is average. The whole upper-crustness and superficiality of all the characters was quite irritating. Mia Farrow was miscast as Alice. Woody Allen wrote the role for her, as he did many of his 80s movies (they were in a relationship, after all). However, she simply comes across as irritatingly mousy and neurotic. Typically Woody Allen would play the neurotic character, as that is all he knows (by his own admission) but as the part required a female, he probably thought Mia Farrow was his female equivalent.William Hurt nails the aloof, too-rich-to-care, stuck-up husband, though his character is quite irritating. Good support from Joe Mantegna, Alec Baldwin, Judy Davis and Cybill Shepherd.Overall, OK but certainly not a must-see, even if you are, like me, a Woody Allen fan.