A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, 3.5 stars

Within the space of one week I watched two of Woody Allen's early attempts to depart from what would soon become his signature style. I found his attempt at light period comedy slightly more successful than his sci-fi effort, despite having heard much more about "Sleeper" than I did about "AMNSC". Here Allen has taken bits and pieces from a few Shakespeare plays as well as Renoir's "Rules of the Game" and shaken them all together to make a "sex comedy" that is mostly comedy and has next to no sex.

The basic plot is that three couples come together for a weekend in the country, and each man winds up lusting after another man's woman. Allen is an inventor who has a sweet but frigid wife and lusts after Mia Farrow, whom he could have had an affair with years ago but for his own timidity. This is much more of an ensemble piece than I am accustomed to seeing from Woody, at least among films where he is also an actor. The rest of the cast is given equal screen time, and the diversions and deceptions are easy enough on the eyes that the film seems to float by like one of the ghosts it becomes obsessed with toward the end. Perhaps this is also the film's flaw; Allen's humor is biting and cynical by nature and when toned down to early 1900's standards it lacks a certain verve. It's an above-average effort by Woody and is, in a change from many of his early films, photographed gorgeously. Perhaps the fact that I watched it so near the title summer solstice evening made me unfairly generous. For evenings like that, however, when one desires a light confection that will bring the hint of a smile to your face and allow it to linger for 90 minutes, this is just what the doctor ordered.