Other Titles • The Purple Rose of Cairo • Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Synopses for The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
1.
One of the high points of Woody Allen's career. Cecilia (Mia Farrow), a depression-era waitress married to a brutish husband (Danny Aiello), finds her only escape at the movies, her current favorite being a light comedy about an explorer among socialites, called The Purple Rose of Cairo. She sees it so many times that the main character, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), falls in love with her and steps off the screen to woo her. When news of this gets back to the movie studio, the producers send the actor who played Baxter (also Daniels) to convince Baxter to get back on the screen. The script is one of Allen's funniest, but underlying the whole story is a current of sadness that gives the movie's ending a surprising impact. Allen himself considers The Purple Rose of Cairo to be his personal favorite of his own films. A gem. --Bret Fetzer
(15 votes)
2.
As a beleaguered waitress and battered wife in depression-era New Jersey, Cecilia's only escape from her dreary life is her endless moviegoing. Fantasy and reality merge in a startling and comical fashion when the hero of a film Cecilia's watched a thousand times emerges from the screen and starts squiring her around town. A pack of panicked studio executives pursue the errant leading man while the cast of disgruntled characters stranded on-screen await his return.
(15 votes)
3.
"[A] Masterpiece!" -Time Magazine
"One of the best movies about movies ever made" (Time Magazine), Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo slips through the looking glass of cinematic convention to create a magical, "intoxicating" (Cosmopolitan) comic fable about life, love, illusion and hope. Starring Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello and Dianne Wiest, this Academy Award®-nominated film showcases Allen "at his most imaginative and compassionate, capturing the magic of the cinema" (Screen International) in all of its bittersweet glory!
Lonely Depression-era waitress Cecilia (Farrow) is hopelessly addicted to Hollywood movies. Spellbound by her new favorite, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Cecilia is astonished when the leading man (Daniels) suddenly walks off the screen to meet her. Wooed by his charm, Cecilia finds herself falling for him - until she meets the real actor who plays him. Romanced by both a fictional character and a famous star, Cecilia struggles to locate the shifting line between fantasy and reality, only to discover that sometimes it's just a heartbeat away.
(15 votes)
4.
"I've just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything." So says Cecilia (Mia Farrow), the central figure in Woody Allen's lyrically humorous Purple Rose of Cairo. The era is the Great Depression, and she is the bullied wife who finds escape in romantic movies, falling in love with the explorer hero, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), of the eponymous film. So far, nothing remarkable. But Allen has Baxter spot her in the audience, fall in love with her, and desert the picture, much to the irritation of the other characters. The surreal quality of the situation develops further when Gil Shepherd--the actor who played Baxter (Daniels again)--seeks out his fictional alter ego to persuade him back into the film and thus save both their reputations. Naturally Shepherd, too, falls in love with Cecilia, and she's left to choose between fiction and reality, chooses the latter and is then cruelly jilted. The message seems clear: fairytales are just that, make-believe. There's no such thing as a happy ending. Dating from 1985 (after Broadway Danny Rose and immediately before Hannah and her Sisters), this is one of the few movies in which Allen doesn't actually appear, though he's recognisable in every line of Farrow's character. It's also a nostalgic tribute to the era that defined movie glamour, the close-up of Cecilia's face at the end a moment of pure Hollywood. At 81 minutes, this is a small but brilliant gem.
On the DVD: Aside from the technological improvement of DVD over video, the new format adds little by way of features: you can view the original trailer, scan the film scene by scene, and there's a choice of subtitles in eight languages.--Harriet Smith
(15 votes)
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
Movie Database
In Theaters
