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The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

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No Reviews Yet...

Release Date: Mar 1, 1985 Wide

audience

85

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 19,066

My Rating

Movie Info

Woody Allen blurs the the boundaries between the real and unreal in this unique comic fantasy. The scene is a small town in the mid-1930s. Trapped in a dead-end job and an abusive marriage, Cecelia (Mia Farrow) regularly seeks refuge in the local movie house. She becomes so enraptured by the latest attraction, an RKO screwball comedy called The Purple Rose of Cairo, that she returns to the theatre day after day. During one of these visits, the film's main character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels),

PG,

Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comedy

Woody Allen

Nov 6, 2001

Orion Pictures Corporation

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Cast

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All Critics (34) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (28) | Rotten (3) | DVD (10)

In NJ, anything can happen!

March 22, 2011 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Whimsical Woody Allen love note to '30s films.

December 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

Woody Allen's bittersweet comedy about the magical allure of movies in the Depression era was nominated for Original Screenplay Oscar, but it's premise is smiliar to that of Buster Keaton's 1924 silent.

August 4, 2009 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

Weird but wistful.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

sublimely engaging

February 26, 2005
Shadows on the Wall

Classic Woody. A great cast and a great story.

December 18, 2004

Inventive, even romantic Woody Allen.

October 25, 2004

The most overlooked of Allen's great films.

October 8, 2004 Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Star

A thoroughly enchanting work of art by one of our finest moviemakers

August 18, 2004 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice
Spirituality and Practice

Awesome Woody Allen

September 26, 2003
About.com

Clever Woody Allen comedy-fantasy.

August 24, 2003
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

One of Allen's oddest and most charming experiments.

May 11, 2003
San Francisco Examiner

Its satirical destruction of the fourth wall disguises a bittersweet lesson on Hollywood dreams and the unpleasant realities they hide.

January 16, 2003
Flipside Movie Emporium

Lighthearted and full of whimsy

October 21, 2001 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
Filmcritic.com

A lot of meanings float around in this outwardly simple fable.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

Audience Reviews for The Purple Rose of Cairo

"I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything."

In 1930s New Jersey, a movie character walks off the screen and into the real world.

REVIEW
There's no way you can't like the ingenuity of the movie, and the fun it has. It's about the joy of life, and love of the movies, and the difficulty to tell the difference sometimes (at least when in the theater). In some ways this is one of Woody Allen's lightest movies, and certainly lightweight compared to the more serious movies of this period (like the stunning gem, "Another Woman"). It's not zany like his earliest comedies ("Love and Death"). And it's not deeply observant and sometimes downright moving and brilliant like his best movies (like "Annie Hall" or "Crimes and Misdemeanors"). In that way it feels like what some novelists would call an "entertainment" to distinguish from their heavier masterpieces, and sometimes these are the most readable of all. Or the most watchable.

"The Purple Rose of Cairo" is inventive, warm, and touching. It's really high brow hilarious when the people on the screen react to the situation, not only because of the existential reality shift going on, but because they are all high brow types. Then there are the everyday scenes with Mia Farrow, the lead actress in the real world (usually), and support from Danny Aiello, really just a foil for the main romances (two) going on with Farrow (singular). It's not as complicated as it sounds, which might prove the elegance of Allen's writing. A beautiful, delicate movie without undo weightiness. Joyous, yes, even in its melancholy end.
December 26, 2008
LorenzoVonMatterhorn
Lorenzo von Matterhorn

Super Reviewer

It's clear Woody Allen knows how to pick and choose a strong cast. Mia Farrow is irrefutably underrated; nobody has seemed to ever understand her potential, and I strongly feel that she is, in fact, one of the most outstanding Hollywood actresses from the latter half of the twentieth century. Not only is she beautiful, her delivery is brilliant, and her chemistry with Jeff Daniels-who delivers just a slightly less powerful performance-is grand.

What more can I say about THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO? It isn't perfect, but it's very much close. I'm talking about a sheer motion picture that represents the 1930s in perchance the utmost picturesque, vivid manner possible. The writing is guaranteed pleasure for those who don't generally view film as a work of art, but for just about any cinephile watching this is bound to get a magical thrill similar to the kind a young child receives when he or she enters a candy shop. In just two, simplistic words, it's magnificent.

read it all at themoviefreakblog.com
October 9, 2011
spielberg00

Super Reviewer

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December 8, 2005:
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Well-admired character actor Jeff Daniels will star in a thriller entitled "The Lookout"...

Foreign Titles

  • Purple Rose of Cairo (UK)
  • The Purple Rose of Cairo (CA)
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