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In Hannah and Her Sisters, we see the ancestor of HBO's "Sex and the City"--diverse 'types' of New York women who regularly convene in chic restaurants or the fashion district, sometimes as a group, other times paired off, to share in and critique one another's travails. That hit show steals the cheese from many of the same traps that caught Woody Allen: romantic sentiments that drive all the lust--and blood--out of the picture. An ensemble piece spanning a trio of Thanksgivings, Hannah and Her Sisters follows the lives of three showbiz daughters, two of whom seem to orbit around planet Hannah (Mia Farrow), the requisite 'sensible one' whose story is, fortunately, not the one being told (she's as dull as a surfboard), although bad things are happening to her just outside of cognizance. Sister Lee (Barbara Hershey) is entertaining an affair with Hannah's accountant husband, Elliot (Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Michael Caine), through which she would trade up paternal lovers (she's been living with an anti-social painter played by Max Von Sydow, frequent co-conspirator of Allen idol Ingmar Bergman), while mistrustful second sibling Holly (the always-excellent Dianne Wiest) substitutes cocaine for her lack of acting jobs and boyfriends. Allen himself continually intrudes upon these acute, often difficult-to-watch subplots as Hannah's hypochondriacal ex: Mickey, they call him, is on hand to present the callow, proto-hysterical notions of Allen's famously repressed Manhattan Jew converting to Christianity or, get ready to slap your knee, Hare Krishna. And yet, when Hannah and Her Sisters switches gears and everybody starts getting the happy endings they maybe don't deserve, only Mickey's transformation really works--his personality lends itself to big redemptive gestures. (Pauline Kael rightfully complained that Holly's resolution reeks of a judgment call: Holly is espoused after she gives up punk music for classical.) The movie has so much last-minute bliss and hope that preceding scenes of confrontation and starkness distinguish themselves as dramatic relief. I'm never less than willing to revisit Hannah and Her Sisters, however. Go figure. MGM's rich but compressed-looking 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD release of Hannah and Her Sisters isn't quite up to par with the most impressive of their earlier Woody Allen titles (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan), though it's above acceptable. The 2.0 mono sound is strong. Extras include a trailer and insert booklet customarily dappled with morsels of information straight from the horse's mouth.-Bill Chambers