Steve Vineburg

“Finally, however, these shortcomings don't dampen the film at all, not only because Allen's invention soars through so much of it, but also because it has a soul: Mia Farrow. Allen knew just what he was doing when he entrusted the bulk of her acting in The Purple Rose of Cairo to her: Though she's given lovely performances before this, no previous director has seen in her what Allen clearly sees (and he's right). At first, listening to her brightly colored, run-off-at-the-mouth line readings--sometimes she sounds like a female Woody Allen here--and watching how her face lights up the moment she enters the Jewel, and how she can't wipe off her foolish grin or keep her hands still when she meets her movie star, I thought she was giving the most purely charming comic performance that any actress has since Shelley Duvall in Popeye. That's only half of it, though. Cecilia wears all her emotions right out on her face: Gazing up at the screen, she's an eraptured waif, and when someone breaks her heart, her face blurs, as if tears could erase it. She changes expressions so dramatically and yet so naturally that the long close-ups she takes, especially in the last scene, seem like magical transformations. The delicate intensity of her acting recalls Lillian Gish's--and, really, I can think of no higher compliment.Error! Reference source not found.

“…. The Purple Rose of Cairo has a bittersweet underlayer; the relationship between Cecilia and the movies she fills her head with isn't far from the relationship between the characters in Pennies from Heaven and the songs they sing to give shape to their blocked-up emotions…. Besides, the "magical glow" that Gil ascribes to [Cecilia] transforms even the clichés of a third-rate screen romance; it's her glow that brings Tom down off the screen. That's the meaning of the fairy tale. (It transforms Gil, too, and makes him fall in love with her.) I don't know whether Woody Allen could have found another actress to bring this off. Mia Farrow does; she is sublime.”

Steve Vineburg
April 1985 (publ?)
No Surprises Please, pp ?