Editing Interiors (section)

=== Critical response ===
On the [[review aggregator]] website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds an approval rating of 78% based 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10.<ref>{{cite Rotten Tomatoes|id=interiors|type=movie|title=Interiors|publisher_hide=y}}</ref> [[Weighted arithmetic mean|weighted average]], assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.<ref>{{cite web |title=Interiors Reviews |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/interiors |website=[[Metacritic]] |access-date=February 29, 2020}}</ref>

[[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' called the film "beautiful" and complimented [[Gordon Willis]] on his "use of cool colors that suggest civilization's precarious control of natural forces", but noted:<ref name="canby">{{cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Canby |date=August 6, 1978 |title=Screen: 'Interiors,' a Departure for Woody Allen |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/08/02/archives/screen-interiors-a-departure-for-woody-allenculture-shock.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |page=D1 |access-date=December 5, 2018 |archive-date=December 5, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181205060801/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/08/02/archives/screen-interiors-a-departure-for-woody-allenculture-shock.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
{{blockquote|My problem with ''Interiors'' is that although I admire the performances and isolated moments ... I haven't any real idea what the film is up to. It's almost as if Mr. Allen had set out to make someone else's movie, say a film in the manner of Mr. Bergman, without having any grasp of the material, or first-hand, gut feelings about the characters. They seem like other people's characters, known only through other people's art.}}

Richard Schickel of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' wrote that the film's "desperate sobriety ... robs it of energy and passion"; Allen's "style is Bergmanesque, but his material is [[Joseph Mankiewicz|Mankiewiczian]], and the discontinuity is fatal. Doubtless this was a necessary movie for Allen, but it is both unnecessary and a minor embarrassment for his well-wishers."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948229,00.html|title=Cinema: Darkest Woody|date=August 1978|author-link=Richard Schickel|first=Richard|last=Schickel|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=October 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191013130412/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948229,00.html|archive-date=October 13, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] gave the film four stars and praised it highly, writing, "Here we have a Woody Allen film, and we're talking about [[Eugene O'Neill|O'Neill]] and [[Ingmar Bergman|Bergman]] and traditions and influences? Yes, and correctly. Allen, whose comedies have been among the cheerful tonics of recent years, is astonishingly assured in his first drama."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/interiors-1978|title=Interiors – Movie Review & Film Summary (1978)|author-link=Roger Ebert|first=Roger|last=Ebert|newspaper=[[The Chicago Sun-Times]]|via=[[RogerEbert.com]]|date=August 2, 1978|access-date=October 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191013130413/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/interiors-1978|archive-date=October 13, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Gene Siskel]] awarded three stars out of four and wrote:
{{blockquote|I thought the unremitting pain of the first half of the film was almost laughable, as if Allen had made a bad Bergman film. I thoroughly enjoyed the second half, in which the film's only bright, lively character (Maureen Stapleton as the father's new, romantic interest) makes her entrance. At the end, I left the theater thinking that the picture was painful and didn't have much applicability to my life, but that I would always remember its characters more for the superb acting than for Allen's script.<ref>{{cite news|author-link=Gene Siskel|last=Siskel|first=Gene|date=September 22, 1978|title=Allen's 'Interiors': A touch of Bergman plus fine acting|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|at=Section 4, p. 3|issn=1085-6706}}</ref>}}

[[Charles Champlin]] called the film "somber, intense and stunning", concluding, "Like ''[[Cries and Whispers]]'', Allen's ''Interiors'' is, for all the somberness of the material, in the end an affirmation of life and a transcendent piece of art. The film lovers will love it if joke-seekers do not.<ref>{{cite news|author-link=Charles Champlin|last=Champlin|first=Charles|date=August 27, 1978|title=Woody Allen Drops the Mask|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|at=Calendar, pp. 1, 32|issn=0458-3035}}</ref>

[[Penelope Gilliatt]] of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' wrote: "This droll piece of work is [Allen's] most majestic so far. The theme its characters express is very [[Anton Chekhov|Chekhovian]]. It is pinned to the idea that the hardest, and most admirable thing to do is to act properly through a whole life."<ref>{{cite magazine|author-link=Penelope Gilliatt|last=Gilliatt|first=Penelope|date=August 7, 1978|title=The Current Cinema|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|page=78|issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

[[James Monaco]], in his 1979 book ''American Film Now'', described ''Interiors'' as "the most pretentious film by a major American filmmaker in the last thirty years" alongside ''[[Mickey One]]'' (1965).<ref>{{cite book |last=Monaco |first=James |author-link=James Monaco |url=https://archive.org/details/americanfilmnowp0000mona_v8w4/page/264/mode/2up |title=American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies |location=New York |publisher=[[Plume (publisher)|Plume]] |year=1979 |page=264 |isbn=978-0-1950-2570-5 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In 2016, ''Interiors'' was listed as Allen's 11th best film in an article by ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' critics [[Robbie Collin]] and Tim Robey, who wrote that "the emotional effort being expended is cumulatively hard to shrug off" and praised Stapleton's performance.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/woody-allens-best-and-worst-movies/|title=All 47 Woody Allen movies – ranked from worst to best|author1-last=Collin|author1-first=Robbie|author-link1=Robbie Collin|author2-last=Robey|author2-first=Tim|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=October 12, 2016|access-date=January 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118143535/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/woody-allens-best-and-worst-movies/|archive-date=January 18, 2021|url-status=live}}</ref>