Impeccably acted, though sometimes as dry and dusty as an old Latin primer, Woody Allen's Bergmanesque drama is basically Scrooge for highbrows. Gena Rowlands is the college professor who, reaching 50, sets to work on a new book at her hideaway writing flat (we should all afford such luxuries), where she begins to hear voices through the ventilation, ostensibly from the psychiatrist's next door. The problems of a pregnant woman (Mia Farrow) on the couch there mirror her own. She begins to see herself in a different light, more as others see her. Are the voices ghostly, or are they really there? By the end, they have helped Rowlands cast off the old and bring on the new. Allen's writing here is often perceptive (if occasionally shallow), but certainly for minority audiences only. Mainline movie-goers may agree with the character half-way through who says that 'We've talked this to death'.

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