A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy

Even if one is able to separate Woody Allen’s personal life from his professional one, the majority of his films are categorically divisive. Not in the political or sociological sense. It’s purely about the jokes; you either get ‘em or you don’t. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is one of Allen’s final stabs at the free-form ensemble farce, produced in 1982 and marking the first appearance of Mia Farrow in his ever-expanding cinematic universe.

Taking equal inspiration from Shakespeare and Ingmar Bergman with a predictably Borscht Belt bent, the film gathers three couples for a weekend in the country that turns into a partner-swapping debacle of ‘70s sitcom proportions. Sexually troubled couple Andrew (Allen) and his wife (Mary Steenburgen) play host to the soon-to-be-married Leopold (Jose Ferrer), a pretentious professor pushing seventy, and the much younger Ariel (Farrow), who Andrew let slip away a decade earlier and now pursues with puerile vengeance. Also in the running for Ariel’s affection is, Maxwell (Tony Roberts), Andrew’s best friend, a sex-addicted physician who’s already brought along a “sure thing” in the form of his dimwitted nurse, Dulce (Julie Hagerty).

Allen puts his familiar neurotic persona in the middle of this maelstrom of hormonal chaos, toying with the anticipation of each secret meeting and botched scheme. It’s all in good fun with nary a broken heart or hurt feeling by film’s end. And it’s exactly that sort of idealized fairytale that the director seems to be going for based on the title alone. Layer in some gorgeous naturalistic photography by Godfather cinematographer Gordon Willis and the feel-good tribute to Allen’s inspirations is complete.

Yet, as with many of Allen’s film, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy often feels like just one chapter out of an amusing book of short stories. Considering his remarkable cinematic output (releasing at least one film every year since 1977), that’s probably a fair assessment. But the film’s lack of artistic significance doesn’t make it any less amusing while it unfolds; particularly the bulls eye performance by Julie Hagerty, whose exceptional comic timing in Airplane was no fluke. And Allen himself seems particularly joyful here, deftly balancing his usual self-conscious witticisms (“I can’t have intercourse where I eat my oatmeal,” he quips during a romantic kitchen interlude) with a surprising appreciation for the inherent magic of the natural world…above and beyond Central Park for a change!

Twilight Time has been the only game in town for Allen completists, releasing six of the director’s films on Blu-ray already with plans for even more to come. And despite the lack of any participation from Woody himself, each transfer has looked better than the last, providing a beautiful hi-def library of catalog titles that really do seem to fit together like interconnected volumes by the same author. Extras here include an isolated score track, theatrical trailer and liner notes.