Why Woody Allen shot his 1987 drama September twice from the ground up

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Woody Allen’s 1987 drama September is a chamber piece modeled on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Yet, the film’s production was famously turbulent. Allen was so dissatisfied with his initial vision that he scrapped the entire project, recasting the lead roles and reshooting the film in its entirety before its final release.

Released in 1987, September was intended as a play on film, characterized by long takes and minimal camera effects. The story follows Lane, a woman recovering from a suicide attempt at her Vermont country house, whose summer is disrupted by the arrival of her tactless mother, Diane, and a web of unrequited romantic entanglements among their neighbors. The narrative tension centers on a dark family secret: a past shooting involving Diane’s former abusive lover, which Lane had long been blamed for, only for the truth to emerge during a climactic breakdown.

The production history is as notable as the plot. Allen originally filmed the project with Sam Shepard as the writer Peter, Maureen O’Sullivan as Diane, and Charles Durning as Howard. Christopher Walken was also briefly involved before being replaced. After reviewing the initial edit, Allen decided the film was not working. He proceeded to rewrite the script, recast the roles—eventually featuring Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, and Dianne Wiest—and reshoot the entire picture. Even after this exhaustive process, Allen has expressed a desire to redo the project again.

Critical and audience reception was lukewarm. The film holds a 63% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews, while audiences polled by CinemaScore assigned it an average grade of B-. Despite its straightforward dramatic approach and the subversion of traditional gender roles found in its source material, Uncle Vanya, September remains a curious footnote in Allen’s filmography, defined more by its obsessive reshoots than its ultimate impact on the screen.

The film’s central conflict mirrors real-life events involving Lana Turner and her daughter, Cheryl Crane, adding a layer of meta-commentary to the mother-daughter dynamic. As the characters navigate their personal failures and the revelation of the past shooting, the film concludes on a somber note, with the protagonist encouraged to simply keep busy. It stands as a testament to a director’s pursuit of a specific, elusive tone, even at the cost of significant creative and financial resources.

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