Mighty Aphrodite

Woody Allen plays Henry Higgins to Mira Sorvino's Liza Doolittle, but she is no fair lady. She is Linda Ash, a hooker, porno star, and, surprise, the biological mother of his adopted child. An improbable character, but Sorvino scores with a breakthrough Academy Award-winning performance. Helena Bonham Carter has the "get Mia" role as Allen's self-involved wife. Borrowing from his play, God, Allen imagines a white-robed classical Greek chorus led by F. Murray Abraham to comment on the proceedings. "I see catastrophe," cries one member. "Worse, I see lawyers." Recommended. (K. Benson)