Famously, Woody Allen has spent the greater part of his adult life in psychoanalysis of one form or other.

And as time starts to overtake him, it's becoming increasingly hard to tell whether he's sitting in the director's chair or on the psychiatrist's.

Deconstructing Harry, which premiered at the Bradford Film Festival last month and which goes on general release today, is the latest in a long line of movies for which Woody bares his soul and beats his breast in the hope, presumably, of obtaining cathartic relief.

There is, it seems, precious little difference now between Woody the man and Woody the character.

We find him here as Harry, characteristically in love with a younger woman (Elisabeth Shue) and writing stories which are thinly-disguised accounts of his own life.

He is also a serial adulterer, having worked his way through three marriages of his own and also that of his wife's sister. "Six shrinks later, three wives down the line, and I still can't get my life together," he agonises.

Episodes from his life are presented to us as vignettes which punctuate the main narrative, and some are genuinely inspired. Robin Williams appears as an actor who's permanently out of focus; Demi Moore as a demented Jewish wife.

It's all very typically Woody. The central story, however, shows a less-expected side to his character. There is anger and deep-seated profanity, not just angst, in the embittered Harry's attempts to attend his college reunion with both his estranged son and a prostitute in tow.

The source of his burning-up is the decision by Miss Shue to jilt him for a younger man, Billy Crystal to wit. But we see so little of Lis and Billy that our attention is drawn more to the stories of the supporting characters - Woody's neurotic ex-wife (Kirstie Alley) being a case in point.

Deconstructing Harry is not one of Woody's classics; its script, one feels, is targeted as much at his analyst as his audience. Indeed, there's material enough for an entire case study when Woody allows himself to say: "I'm a guy who can't function well in life but can in art."

Of course, there is a positive benefit to outpouring this in our direction. Audiences, unlike psychiatrists, don't charge a hundred dollars an hour to listen. Woody may be screwed up, but he's not daft.

David Behrens

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