Woody Allen’s inventive comedy, set in the period between the world wars, has drawn richly deserved praises for its story (the rise and fall of Leonard Zelig, a “human chameleon” who takes on the characteristics of people around him), narrative style (hilariously doctored newsreel footage blended with talking-head accounts of people who crossed his path), and brilliant cinematography (by DP extraordinaire Gordon Willis). To that list should be added the luminous performance of Mia Farrow. In her first movie with Woody Allen — Zelig was shot before but released after A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy — she plays a shy but canny psychoanalyst who decides she can help Zelig (prompting a newsreel narrator to marvel “Who says women are only good for sewing?”). After she get to the root of his bizarre disorder — a desire to be liked — she falls in love with, and loses, him…only to be re-united in the middle of a Nazi rally led by Adolf Hitler. They don’t write romantic scenes like this one anymore.
