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Director:
Woody Allen

Starring:
Jason Biggs
Christina Ricci
Woody Allen
Danny DeVito
Stockard Channing

Release: 19 Sep. 03
IMDb

I keep going to Woody Allen films because there’s always going to be that promise of something amazing to come out of the experience. He is one of the few filmmakers to let me down fairly regularly without getting ever turning me into a dissenter. Maybe it’s my undying respect for films like Manhattan, Sleeper, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Zelig, and Hannah and Her Sisters; maybe it’s the verbal zingers that he can always fit into the most mediocre of scripts (Celebrity, Stardust Memories); maybe it’s his persona (most effective in Broadway Danny Rose and Deconstructing Harry, two especially underrated gems); or maybe it’s the realization that he averages at least one great film out of every three (with one mediocrity, one good, rarely anything especially bad).

Anything Else, the latest from Allen, breaks the rule of averages, making this his fourth consecutive letdown following Small Time Crooks, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and Hollywood Ending. They were preceded by an especially strong period that included Mighty Aphrodite, Bullets over Broadway, Everybody Says I Love You, Deconstructing Harry, and Sweet and Lowdown (the only substandard film being the passable Celebrity), a period that may make this latency period acceptable although still disappointing.

Perhaps recognizing that he was the lead in only one of his 1994-99 films (Deconstructing Harry), Allen chooses to take a supporting role in Anything Else, allowing Jason Biggs, a poor-man’s neurotic, to play his normal role. The two have many scenes together, which help to underline the inadequacy of Biggs as an Allen proxy.

The Allen character in spirit is Jerry Falk, a stuggling New York comedian trying to make sense of the relationship he’s somehow found himself in with the free spirit Amanda (Ricci). They share little in common except a magnetism that is expressed in the dialogue, not in the nonexistent chemistry between the actors.

At the same time, Jerry is receiving career guidance from a failed comedian, David Dobel (Allen), who fancies himself a master at comedy, relationships, women, firearms, contracts, and wit. Although Allen himself has proven amazingly lucid at most of these subjects in the past (firearms being the only exception to the best of my recollection), little of his impressionable genius seems to come into the story, which often bares itself as intellectual romantic comedy, but ultimately lacks the intellect most often found in Allen’s films.

This is Woody Allen-light, and, although discouraging, not necessarily damning. He still recognizes a pace to farce that is rarely seen in most modern comedies. Even in his worst films, there’s a professionalism that has been honed through five decades of comedy writing. However, when the film hits its highs -- like when David takes out his rage on some thugs’ car -- there is a reminder of what consistency of humor the writer-director used to have. It’s discouraging that the laughs come with the underlying disappointment -- the lack of laughs -- that the rest of the film has.

By my count, there’s still another film for Allen to make before I can write him off as on a complete decline. But, even if he spends the rest of his days making mediocre ones like Anything Else, something tells me I’ll still happily stand in line to see them.