Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: ALLEN,WOODY
EAN: 9780788814730
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC
ISBN: 6305291470
Label: Miramax
Manufacturer: Miramax
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: Miramax
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 18, 1999
Running Time: 95 minutes
Sales Rank: 10288
Studio: Miramax
Theatrical Release Date: January 11, 1996
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A father becomes obsessed with the natural mother of his adopted son.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-APR-2004
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com essential video:
Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for her performance as a bubbleheaded hooker and porn star who happens to be the mother of a bright young boy adopted by a Manhattan couple (Woody Allen and Helena Bonham Carter). The story finds Allen's sportswriter character becoming curious about the identity of his son's biological mom, and he strikes up a relationship with her without revealing why. This 27th feature written and directed by Allen is a nice combination of smart comedy and some of the wackier energy of his earliest movies. (Between scenes, there's a running gag involving a Greek chorus--actually filmed among some real Greek ruins--who do song-and-dance interpretations of the script's events.) This isn't Allen at his best, but it is a fine minor work graced by Sorvino's spin on the cinema's archetypal dumb blonde. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Oedipus, Schmoedipus
Mighty Aphrodite (1995) won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for Mira Sorvino, and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Woody Allen. Sorvino, the Harvard educated daughter of actor Paul Sorvino, plays a squeaky-voiced, potty mouth hooker. Her character is none too bright, and though she aspires to be an actress, and has appeared in several pornographic films, she is terrible. Somewhat of a stretch, considering that Mira Sorvino is an Academy Award winner, and she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in East Asian Studies. While at Harvard, she helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's premier co-ed a cappella groups, not to mention spending a year of study in Beijing. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and also speaks French. The Oscar win is even more impressive when you consider that she was up against Elisabeth Shue. Shue starred as a prostitute in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage. Cage won his Oscar, but I guess they liked Sorvino's hooker better. Perhaps because her film had a happy ending? Even if they did employ the 'deux ex machina' to achieve it. I compare her win to Alan Arkin's for his potty mouthed but loveable grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine. Though Sorvino's character, Linda Ash, wasn't too bright, she had a kind of Gracie Allen grace and logic. Like when sportswriter Lenny Weinrib (Woody Allen) asks her if she is ever worried that one of her clients will kill her, she replies that she always makes them pay in advance. ... Read More
Rating: - Uplifting comedy
Mighty Aphrodite is hardly Allen at his best. The gags are mostly second rate, some of his devices in his 27th movie come across as second or third rehashes of things he has used before - neurotic middle aged guy involved with whores, ditzy woman who can't get her life in order. Even the original tropes such as the Greek chorus I didn't find particularly funny. It is an uplifting comedy though, very much different from the bleak masterpieces of films such as Crimes and Misdermeanours, and by the end the plot is slickly wrapped up to show how human actions can unforseeably change circumstances for the better.
Rating: - "Of all human weaknesses, obsession is the most dangerous, and the silliest!"
"Mighty Aphrodite" (1995), Woody Allen's hilarious yet moving and surprisingly optimistic film can be viewed as a modern retelling of the ancient tragedy "Oedipus". Like Oedipus in Sophocles's play who became obsessed with discovering identity of his real parents which led to the most horrifying results, Lenny Weinrib (Allen) wants to find the real mother of his and his wife Amanda's adopted son Max who turned to be a brilliant and incredibly gifted boy. The search brings him to Linda, a small time porn star and a hooker with whom Lenny becomes friends and tries to persuade her to change her life. Mira Sorvino as a naive dumb blonde with a high pitch voice is mighty fine and she more than deserved the Oscar for Best Supporting role. She is convincing and very sweet, and there is not a single wrong note in her acting. Once again, I am fascinated by Allen's ability to work with his actors and to bring the best in them when they perform in his movies. Allen was hilarious trying to resist Sorvino's advances in their first scene together. Not to let us forget that we are in the realm of Greek tra-medy, Allen employs the characters from Greek mythology who comment on and even participate in the events. Among then, the blind seer Tiresias who can see the developing problems in Lenny's marriage better than Lenny himself, "Miss Party Pooper", Cassandra who was cursed to always predict the truth but no one would ever believe her, and the ancient chorus whose leader (Murray Abraham) desperately tries to stop Lenny ... Read More
Rating:  - Absolutely boring and pointless
I had higher expectations of the film. Usually when an actor or actress wins an academy award, I expect their performance to be oscar worthy. Mira Sorvino's performance was anything but, oscar worthy. I guess she just got lucky, and the academy gave her the oscar for best supporting actress( over Elisabeth Shue, who actually deserved to win for her performance in "Leaving Las Vegas").
The movie is about an old man named Lenny (played by Woody Allen), he is a sportswriter as well. He is married to a younger woman named Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter), they decide to adopt a son. As the son grows older he turns out to be a genius. Lenny soon becomes determined to find out who the birth parents are. He goes through hell to get to it, finally he finds Linda Ash(Mira Sorvino), she is actually a porn-star and a prostitute with a squeaky voice. He can't believe it at first, but as he gets to know her he forms a deep connection with her.
The story also in a way is told in the form of the greek play "Oedipus". I kind of felt that Allen was mocking the greek tragedy and adding his own twist to it. Lenny starts to discuss his options with the people who are acting in the play, it is extremely stupid. Meanwhile, Lenny's marriage is falling apart, as Amanda is cheating on him with another man. Their sexual life is drying up as well. The movie turns out to be pointless, Lenny just tries to get Linda out of her prostitution and into a better life, in a way he succeeds.
The movie ... Read More
Rating: - One of the Best Later Comedies
It's easy to break Woody's directing career into three phases. Early career, which would be the seventies movies with Diane Keaton. The mid-career phase was the eighties and early-nineties, including all of the films with Mia Farrow. And late career would be everything after that, up through the latest films with Scarlett Johansson.
Of the later films, this one is often considered the best--though you could certainly make a case for "Deconstructing Harry," or even "Sweet and Lowdown." This one is certainly the best of his later films that might be called a straight comedy.
Woody's experimented with almost every type of movie: slap stick (Bananas), musical (Everyone Says I Love you), fake biopic (Zelig), Fellini inspired (Stardust Memories), Bergman inspired (Another woman), whodunnit (Manhattan Murder Mystery), etc, etc, etc. On this one he found something truly inspired--he blended the elements of Greek tragedy with a Woody Allen comedy--and it worked.
The story here doesn't have the layers of a film like "Hannah and Her Sisters." It's a comedy about a couple who adopt a child. Woody plays the father, and he becomes obsessed with learning about the child's real mother. After building her up in his mind, he's let down to discover she's a call girl, so he takes it upon himself to make her life better, and comedy ensues.
Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for her role, and there is good supporting performances from F. Murray Abraham and Helena Bonham Carter, ... Read More
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