"Another Woman" Missed a Chance to Make the Pregnancy Matter

Another Woman (1988)

A stranger’s pregnancy could give birth to something more dangerous than regret.

• Country: United States

• Genre: Drama

• Director: Woody Allen

• Starring: Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow

gena rowlands as marion in another woman. Photo credit michael quinn.

Clinical Overview

The overheard confessions of a pregnant patient in the therapist’s office next door cause Marion, a fifty-something philosophy professor, in New York, to question her life choices.

Diagnosis

The pregnancy is incidental. But it could be a key plot point.

Prescription

Marion is now a memoirist writing about the affair (and subsequent abortion) that destroyed her first marriage and chance to have children. The pregnant patient’s narrative seems to mirror her own, had she made different choices. Then Marion starts to hear the very feelings she’s writing about expressed in the woman’s words. Is she real or a figment of Marion’s imagination?