Hannah and Her Sisters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"What if there is no God and you only go around once and that's it. Well, ya know, don't you wanna be part of the experience? You know, what the hell it's not all a drag. And I'm thinking to myself, Jeez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And after who knows, I mean maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have."
—Mickey Sachs

Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 film following the lives of a troubled family between two Thanksgivings. It's one of Woody Allen's most popular films, usually grouped with Annie Hall and Manhattan as top favorites. Until the release of Midnight in Paris in 2011, Hannah and Her Sisters was the most financially successful of Allen's films.

Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a successful actress, wife, mother, and sister. As the oldest daughter, she shoulders the difficult task of keeping the family balanced. Her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey) is an intelligent, recovered alcoholic who lives with a misanthropic artist named Frederick (Max Von Sydow). Little does Hannah know, her husband Elliot (Michael Caine) has fallen hopelessly in love with Lee. And Lee just might return his feelings.

Hannah's youngest sister Holly (Dianne Wiest) is an out of work actress and recently recovered cocaine addict. Rejection after rejection starts to take a toll on Holly's confidence level and threatens to destroy the progress she's made.

Meanwhile, Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) has a crisis of his own as he tries to balance his job as a television producer with his crippling hypochondria and fear of death. Relationships and affairs evolve in surprising ways and it all leads up to one final Thanksgiving, three years after the start of the film, that finds everyone in situations they never expected.

Tropes used in Hannah and Her Sisters include:
  • Academy Award: The film won three awards in 1987: Woody Allen won for Best Screenplay, and Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest won for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, respectively. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing.
  • The Alcoholic: Lee admits to Elliot that she was an alcoholic in the past and still regularly attends AA meetings because they comfort her.
    • Norma (the mother) struggles with alcoholism.
  • Amicably Divorced: Hannah and Mickey divorced several years before the events in the film, though they have remained good friends.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Elliot picks the most inopportune moment to pour his heart out to Lee. Elliot plants a kiss on her while Frederick is just in the other room.
  • Babies Ever After: In the last lines of the film, Holly tells Mickey that she's pregnant.
  • Bad Date: Mickey and Holly had a date so bad "it was like the Nuremburg Trials".
  • Betty and Veronica: Hannah and Lee for Elliot.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: April. She and Holly are friends but end up in constant competition with each other over auditions and men. Since April always seems to come out on top, Holly starts to see April as conniving.
  • Book Ends: The film both begins and ends with a Thanksgiving dinner party at Hannah's apartment.
  • Bungled Suicide: Mickey, despairing over the meaninglessness of life, tries to shoot himself with a rifle. Just as he squeezes the trigger, the gun slips and misfires because he was so anxious and sweaty.
  • But I Can't Be Pregnant: Mickey was diagnosed as infertile years before the events in the film but by the end his new wife Holly is pregnant.
  • Cannot Tell a Joke: Though we never see any evidence of it, Holly falls under this category by her own admission.

Holly: I can't believe I said that about the Guggenheim. My stupid rollerskating joke. I should never tell jokes. Mom can tell 'em. And Hannah. But I kill 'em.

Hannah: Could you have ruined yourself somehow?
Mickey: How could I ruin myself?
Hannah: I don't know. Excessive masturbation?
Mickey: You gonna start knockin' my hobbies?

  • Deadpan Snarker: Frederick. Mickey has his moments as well.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Hannah questions Elliot about his coldness toward her. After having nearly everyone tell her she's so "giving", Hannah wonders if people think she has no needs.

Hannah: I have needs!
Elliot: Well, I can't see them and neither can Lee or Holly!

  • Epic Tracking Shot: The entire breakup between Lee and Frederick was a single shot. If that weren't enough, the scene went so well the camera crew were in tears.
    • The other Epic Tracking Shot in the film comes during a dinner between all three sisters as the camera does an arc pan several times during the subtext-filled conversation between the trio.
  • Expy: An in-universe example. Both of Holly's scripts are clearly taken from events in her own life. So much so that it upsets Hannah how much the characters resemble her own family.
  • Failed Audition Plot: Holly auditions for several acting gigs but never manages to get a role. She doesn't take rejection well and struggles with her self-confidence because of it.
  • "Falling in Love" Montage: Played with. Mickey and Holly walk through the park, go out for lunch, and plan a dinner date. Nothing cheesy, just natural conversation and flirting.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Holly and Hannah, with Lee falling somewhere in between them.
  • Freudian Trio: Holly (Id), Lee (Ego), Hannah (Superego). Mickey (Id), Ellliot (Ego), Frederick (Superego).
  • Functional Addict: Holly walked the line between functional and not. She was addicted to cocaine and had issues with depression but she didn't seem to be a lost cause. She recovered before losing control completely.
  • The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Lee and Holly both feel overshadowed by Hannah's successes. Holly lashes out at Hannah because of this while Lee keeps it inside and ends up having an affair with Hannah's husband.
  • Hands-Off Parenting: Hannah says that her parents "loved the idea of having us kids but the idea of raising us didn't interest them much".
  • Happily-Failed Suicide: Related to Bungled Suicide. After the gun misfires, Mickey walks aimlessly around town all day and eventually stops at a movie theater. While watching a Marx Brothers film, Mickey comes to the realization that life is worth living for such things.
  • Happily Married: By the end of the film, this is true for Mickey and Holly and Lee and the unnamed literature professor. Presumably, it's also true for Hannah and Elliot.
  • Happy Ending: Especially when compared to other Woody Allen films. Mickey and Holly are Happily Married and expecting a child. Elliot rediscovers how much he loves Hannah and she never finds out about his affair with Lee. And Lee ends up Happily Married herself to a literature professor.
  • Hollywood Atheist: Averted. Mickey starts to think life is meaningless if he can't believe in God.
  • I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Lee's initial reaction to Elliot's Anguished Declaration of Love.
  • Induced Hypochondria: At even the slightest suggestion, Mickey becomes paranoid that he's deathly ill. The real possibility of having a brain tumor almost drives him over the edge.
  • Inner Monologue: Each of the main characters gets a chance to narrate their inner thoughts at certain points. Elliot and Mickey monologue the most.
  • Instant Book Deal: Holly writes two scripts: one that gets set aside because Hannah was upset at how much the characters resembled her family and a second one that gets produced because of Mickey's support.
  • Insufferable Genius: Frederick.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Norma, the mother of the sisters, was a very attractive actress in her day. Hannah, Evan, and Norma herself comment on it. Hannah also states her father was "so dashing."
  • Jewish Mother: Mickey's mother has a fit when he tells her he wants to covert to Catholicism.
  • The Kirk: Lee.
  • Lady Drunk: Norma.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: A rare gender-flipped version. When he was married to Hannah, Mickey was told he was infertile (though not sterile). Years later, Mickey marries Holly and she surprises him at Thanksgiving by telling him that she's pregnant.
  • Lethal Diagnosis: Mickey's absolute worst fear. His hypochondria and paranoia reach an all time high when he starts worrying that he might have a brain tumor.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Yes. Elliot is married to Hannah but is secretly in love with her sister Lee. Lee is living with Frederick, a disaffected painter. Hannah once tried to set up her ex-husband Mickey with her youngest sister Holly but that turned out to be a disaster. Holly has eyes for an architect named David but he prefers her friend April.
  • The Marx Brothers: Duck Soup is the perfect cure for existential depression.
  • The McCoy: Holly.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: A quick clip of April and David chatting at an art museum in the trailer is missing in the film itself.
  • Off the Wagon: Hannah helps her mother sober up after she starts drinking excessively again.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Mickey's parents milk every second out of the scene they have in the film.

Mickey's Dad: How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!

  • Public Exposure: Lee tells Elliot that she posed nude for some of Fredrick's sketches. He gets a little hot under the collar when he sees them hanging in Lee's apartment later.
  • Rule of Three: There are three sisters, three Thanksgiving dinner parties, and three doctor visits before Mickey finds out he does not have a brain tumor.
  • Shrinking Violet: Played with in Holly's case. She isn't shy but she is very neurotic and insecure.
  • Sibling Triangle: Elliot is married to Hannah but is in love with her sister Lee. A second triangle materializes in the end. Hannah's ex-husband Mickey marries Hannah's younger sister Holly. But Hannah was the one who tried to match them up in the first place so there's no conflict there.
  • Slice of Life: While the film never focuses on a particular character, we get a good picture of how each of them lives.
  • Society Marches On: Slip In the Crowd was hardly as dissonant as Sex Pistols, and now it's a pretty melodic rock song.
  • Spiritual Successor: Frasier took its cues from the film, right down to the Freudian subtext, upper-class families and white-on-black episodic title cards.
  • The Spock: Hannah.
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: Slip Into the Crowd perfectly describes Holly's state of mind and attitude.
  • Thanksgiving Day Story: The film begins at a Thanksgiving dinner party and follows the characters for a little more than a year. The ending is a semi-epilogue set at Thanksgiving a year after that.
  • The Three Faces of Eve: Hannah (wife), Lee (seductress), and Holly (child).
  • We All Die Someday: Mickey has a tough time coming to terms with mortality and the possibility that there is no afterlife.
  • Worth Living For: See the page quote.
  • You Need to Get Laid: Mickey's co-worker Gail suggests he go either to Bermuda or to a whorehouse to clear his head.
  • Your Cheating Heart: Elliot is hopelessly in love with his wife's sister.
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