| Autumn in New York | 
 enlarge | Director: Joan Chen
Actors: Richard Gere, Winona Ryder, Anthony Lapaglia, Elaine Stritch, Vera Farmiga
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $1.48
You Save: $13.50 (90%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  82 reviews
Sales Rank: 15483
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 103
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: MGMD1001441D
Model: ISBN# 0792848004
ISBN: 0792848004
UPC: 027616857613
EAN: 9780792848004
ASIN: B00003CXL7
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: January 2, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Complete with original disc(s), case, and manual. In stock and ships right now!
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Product Description
Romantic drama about an aging playboy who falls for a sweet but terminally ill young woman. Special features: subtitles in french and spanish. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 04/15/2008 Starring: Richard Gere Winona Ryder Run time: 104 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Joan Chen
Amazon.com
Autumn in New York is a by-the-numbers love story, right down to its opening shot of, yes, autumn in New York. Richard Gere stars as restaurateur/lady's man Will, while Winona Ryder plays the airy-fairy, oh-too-delicate-for-this-world Charlotte. Will is 48, Charlotte is 22, and it just keeps getting creepier: Will actually used to hang out with Charlotte's mom. She plays artily with beads and sparkly things, he notices how elfin and different she is (inspiring such stomach-churning dialogue as "I find you completely unprecedented and therefore utterly unpredictable"), and soon they're in love. Ah, but it's doomed: she has a tumor in her heart (just in case you missed the significance, Charlotte says "I'm sick in my heart!"). Does Charlotte have enough time left to teach Will to truly love? While Gere does a stoic job, Ryder spends a lot of time being darling and winsome, aided by the fact that Charlotte has managed to catch one of those special movie diseases where you never look bad or get tubes stuck up your nose. Director Joan Chen doesn't have much of a script to work with, but at least she knows how to pick a cinematographer; the whole movie is shot in gorgeous fall-leaf colors. Several excellent supporting actors are trapped in this movie: Jill Hennessey and Anthony LaPaglia do their very best, but what can they do in the face of such a sweeping, creepy love? Autumn in New York is nothing if not an earnest movie, and it certainly means well. Much like Charlotte, it seems to cry, "Can you let me love you? Please?" No. --Ali Davis
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| Customer Reviews: Read 77 more reviews...
 Autumn InNew York August 1, 2008
I love the movie and it was in perfect condition as stated by the seller.
Like a bird to a feather... June 30, 2008
The title could not be more true to life in this movie. Rarely does such a well made movie, {besides another on Amazon I praised} could have such a title that has so many layers to the story itself.
Bring the Kleenex, girls. It's a whopper.
Richard Gere and Winona Ryder Shine March 8, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Years ago, I spent a fair amount of time with the University of Washington's Professor Charles Johnson. For those of you who don't know, Chuck Johnson won the National Book Award in 1990 for his novel Middle Passage, and was rated by the Los Angeles Times as one of the top 10 literary short story writers in America. I'm not going to BS you with any "my good friend Chuck Johnson" stories; Chuck was best friends with one of my best friends, so I wound tagging along on numerous "visiting Chuck at his house" nights.
Anyway, since I had expressed an interest in literary fiction, about which I knew essentially nothing, Chuck loaned me a book called The Best Literary Short Stories of the Year - one of which was written by him. I read that entire book. And it was hard. Hard, hard. Because - aside from Chuck's story "Kwoon" which was great - these stories were the most mind-numbingly boring things imaginable. All I could think was, "And these are the year's BEST literary short stories? I shudder to imagine the worst." I gave the book back to Chuck, with thanks, and was honest about my reaction. I'll never forget what he told me then, partly because it surprised me, coming from someone so lauded within the literary fiction community:
"You're right, most literary fiction IS boring. For two reasons: (1) Most literary fiction is autobiographical - and most literary writers have led pretty boring lives. (2) Most literary fiction is about weak people with small problems that they can't solve."
What does all that have to do with Autumn in New York? I'm glad you asked! I thought of Chuck Johnson's comment while, and after, watching this film, because Autumn in New York could, almost, be a literary movie. Only this is not a story about weak people with small problems that they can't solve. This is a story about strong people with a big problem that they can't solve, and is thus immensely more interesting.
Director Joan Chen does an oustanding job in this movie, as does her director of photography, Chang Wei Gu. New York City, clad in autumn leaves or winter snow, is luminously captured, almost a character in the story itself. Richard Gere and Winona Ryder each give the best performance I've ever seen from them. (These are not exactly unknown actors who've never done anything impressive before, so that's saying something.) Chen is smart enough to let the camera linger on both their faces during intense scenes, so we can appreciate every nuance of subtle facial experession, just how damn GOOD both these people are at their jobs.
Richard Gere portrays Will Keane, shallow, handsome, womanizing, 48-year-old, successful New York restauranteur who finds himself falling in love with Ryder's 22-year-old Charoltte Fielding. It would be easy to dismiss this movie as just another example of the "hot young girl falls in love with a man twice her age" film so despised by many women. As one woman put it, "This is a male fantasy. What is this beautiful young woman going to do, be around to ease him into his dotage?" Usually in such a movie the age difference is never mentioned. However Autumn in New York is much smarter than that. The age difference gets discussed between these two a LOT, especially early on, and Charlotte makes it clear she's absolutely thrilled to be the object of interest of a sucessful, famous, older guy who looks exactly like Richard Gere. Not exactly a stretch there. Besides, Charlotte has news for Will. She's dying, with probably less than a year to live, so it's not like being around to "ease him into his dotage" is a major concern for her.
It's been said that what makes characters interesting in fiction is the amount of change we can watch them go through. In that sense, Will is the most interesting character in the movie. Charlotte is beautiful and charming and playful and intelligent, and it's totally believable that even this dedicated playboy would find himself falling for her. But throughout the movie she's the same wonderful person as when we first meet her. Will, on the other hand, finds his relationship with Charlotte working profound changes, oftentimes none too gently, in his entire personality.
The scenes with Will and Charlotte are so well-written, their dialogue so witty and touching, this could almost, were it not for the looming spectre of Charlotte's impending death, be a romantic comedy. In that regard I have to give Autumn in New York full props for avoiding the great pitfall of romantic comedies, what I've heard called the Idiot Plot Device. The IPD is that misunderstanding between the two main characters, typically occurring about 20 minutes from the end of the film, that temporarily splits them up before the unrealistically easy reconciliation at the end, and is so-called because the only way this could ever happen in real life is if both people were idiots. Even a movie as otherwise well-done as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days falls victim to the Idiot Plot Device, but again Autumn in New York is much smarter than that. We do see Charlotte and Will split, but the reason they do so is anything but idiotic, and their reconciliation anything but conveniently easy.
Autumn in New York says that loving is better than not loving, that love opens you up to the possibility of being hurt, perhaps severely, but in the final analysis is better than never having loved. This is not a happy little movie. But it is an extraordinarily well-done film that will haunt you, and stay in your mind and heart long after the end credits roll. There are few enough movies of which we can say that.
 Not That Great! January 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This movie was one that I had wanted to see in movie theaters, but was glad that I saw it on dvd instead! It is awfully boring, sappy and filled with fluff and not much substance.
Richard Gere, in my opinion, does a poor acting job in this movie and doesn't seem all that believable as the leading man in this movie. Sure Gere makes nice eye candy, but that is about it.
Normally I enjoy the roles that Winona Ryder plays and find her acting to be wonderful.... However, I was sorely disappointed in the shallow development of the Ryder's character by the writers of this movie.
The only redeeming feature of this movie was that it didn't have the typical/predictable Hollywood ending.
A most unusual Chick-Flick July 8, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
(WARNING! This contains plot spoilers!)
This is an unusual film in the sense that you'd think, from the cover and the brief DVD case description, that this is pure chick-flick, complete with sappy love scenes and a tear-jerker ending.
Well, you'd be right! Yet there is trememdous depth to this film. What makes this movie larger than the sum of its parts is that this is a film about the profound changes that a man's inner heart, and identity, undergo when he encounters the love of a good woman. This is not romantic fantasy, nor is this melancholy for its own sake. This is a very deep film about real love.
Gere plays Will, a sophisticated, if somewhat amoral, restauranteur in New York. His life, while not aimless, is empty. He takes no risks, particularly not in love. He has a daughter from a previous "fling", with whom he has no relationship. He seeks to be a good businessman, but his inner world and heart have atrophied. Enter Winona Ryder's character, Charlotte, who quickly and, admittedly, quite predictably, changes all of that.
What one must keep in mind here is that the magic in this film is not in whether it's predictable, nor is it in Charlotte's Hollywood heart disease that allows her to remain radiantly gorgeous even as her condition worsens to point that she is lying at death's door.
So what is the heart of this film? This movie is about the kind of woman a man wants and needs to love. In that sense, this is a very unusual chick flick, because it really isn't about the woman's point of view or what she wants, although those elements are certainly present. This is about a man who finds a woman that he needs to love, and needs to cherish, in order to become the man he is truly meant to be.
Charlotte truly sees Will for who he is. He is a self-centered womanizer who, while not being a cruel man, is clearly only interested in his own self-fulfillment, particularly in the sexual arena. Yet Charlotte sees something within Will that she responds to, and begins to change him, not by pressuring him, but by both challenging him and accepting him, both at once, yet each in its own distinct way.
Charlotte is innocent while wise, childlike while knowing, vulnerable yet smart and mature. Yet Winona plays her so well that never once is any sort of inner conflict so much as hinted at. Winona plays Charlotte such that Charlotte knows who she is and isn't afraid of her own vulnerability. She is insightful, intuitive, and deliciously feminine. Yet she confronts Will when she needs to do so, perhaps fearful of the outcome but never cowardly. If there is something that needs to be said, she says it. She never attacks, but confronts from a place of love.
Most men would give their right arm for a woman like Charlotte, so it is easy to see why Will falls for her so deeply. She looks up at him with admiring eyes, and he responds to her, "You look at me in a way that I haven't quite earned."
Will is admitting that he is not everything that Charlotte believes that he is; clearly, and quite pathetically, he thinks it noble of himself to do so. Without missing a beat, the playfully-demanding-yet-deeply-sincere Charlotte responds to him, "So EARN it!" And we, along with Will, instantly know that Charlotte sees the man that Will has it within himself to be. The rest of the film is about Will becoming this man. He heals his relationship with his estranged daughter, and takes responsibility for his identity and his choices.
Essentially this film is about the miraculous effects brought into a man's heart about by the love of a good woman. Will must invest everything he is in trying to save Charlotte to finally be the man he was born to be. IMHO, Charlotte is the woman most men want. She never tries to get the upper hand with Will, yet her purity of heart is all she needs to demand, and receive, nothing but the best of who he is and what he has to offer. Winona plays Charlotte as someone who has an innocent, true, pure heart. Hers seems to be that rarest of hearts that the world can't quite seem to corrupt. Her heart is bravely given to a man Charlotte knows has spent a lifetime pretending to be far less that what he actually is. Charlotte is a treasure, and finding her changes Will forever.
The last scene of the film is of Will holding his infant grandchild, in the company of his once estranged, yet always devoted and loving, daughter. The change is remarkable, and even though Charlotte has passed on and Will is in deep grief, he is a much more fulfilled, responsible, and open-hearted man. He has become who he was meant to be, because his love for Charlotte has opened his inner heart.
I can't recommend this film too strongly. The subplot of Will healing his broken relationship with his daughter is done to perfection, as is Will's occasionally contentious relationship with Charlotte's aunt. Anthony LaPaglia, as Will's restaurant manager, is essentially Will's conscious, there to confront him with the fact that once he begins to love Charlotte, he will never be able to stop.
See this film, particularly if you are the romantic type. Even if you are the masculine type, as I am, into "Gladiator", "Rocky", and "The Empire Strikes Back", this movie will become one of your favorites, whether you want it to or not.
P.S. Winona never looked better than she does in this film, but what of it? Her beauty is icing on the cake ... as it always is where real love is concerned.
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