Anything Else

Woody, Woody, Woody. What can be done with Woody Allen these days? When I first heard about this movie I thought, “Awesome! He’s got a perfect cast. Jason Biggs is already kind of Woody-ish and Christina Ricci is young, hot and insane. Should be great!”

Then the reviews started pouring in: “Bad.” “Worst movie ever.” “Jason is TOO Woody.” “Christina is annoying as hell, you’ll hate her.”

Discouraging, but not enough to keep a real Woody fan away.

Jason is Jerry Falk, a young comedy writer in New York (where else?) who hasn’t found a job yet. He’s trying to write a bleak novel about death, but he can’t pay his bills with that.

He’s also in a relationship with the nightmare that is Amanda (Christina). She may be hot and sexual, but she’s also self-centered, selfish, shrill and likes infidelity. It’s a good thing the sex is good…oops. WAS good. She can’t have sex with him anymore. She actually recoils from his touch. She still loves him and can’t live without him, but she doesn’t want him to touch her.

Jerry’s alone in his career, too. His agent, Harvey (Danny DeVito) only has one client. All the rest left him long ago. But Jerry is way too loyal and won’t leave the little agent who lives with his mother.

Jerry’s only ally seems to be Dobel (Woody), another writer that he meets at a meeting with a comic. The two hit it off and start walking through the park talking about their lives. Jerry’s, of course, consists of the three people who annoy him the most (the third one is his analyst who never speaks) and Dobel’s consists of his ruminations on life. The man is certifiable, but he does have a good grip on how to get through life. Oh, he may go off on how the Nazis are still trying to persecute the Jews and that we should all have a gun in every room “just in case,” but he knows that Jerry is letting everyone walk all over him and is out to help him out of his rut.

Like most of Woody’s movies lately, this one isn’t terrible, but it’s not terribly good, either. It has it’s moments of pretty good laughter, but they don’t really seem to go anywhere or add up to much. And sometimes he actually misses a joke that the old Woody would have made surreally hysterical.

The saddest thing is that, for the first time Woody is actually rehashing himself! This movie is Annie Hall! Jerry talks to the camera, pulls himself out of the movie and looks at himself, goes over old relationships… There’s a scene where Dobel talks about someone making a “Jew” comment under his breath. Amanda uses drugs to try to help their sex life. She has an affair with her teacher. Lots and lots of walks in the park with Jerry and Dobel. (Most of the film is actually taken up by this.) I was a little disappointed that Marshall Brickman didn’t get a writing credit!

The acting is not bad all around. (Glowing, aren’t I?) Woody is actually the standout because he’s playing against type. He’s not the nebbishly little guy that all of the young women are fawning over. He’s actually a bitter old man who carries guns and is cynical and basically all alone. And he bashes a guy’s car in with a crow bar. That’s pretty entertaining.

Jason does a pretty good job of being Woody, but still being himself (not that there’s that much of a difference). Christina probably did the best acting job because she made me hate her. Oh, Amanda has her sweet side, but she’s mostly a raving bitch that I wouldn’t want anywhere near me no matter how hot she is. (And she does look AWESOME in this one.)

I don’t know. It’s not a bad little movie. I just wish Woody’s writing was as sharp as it used to be. I really wish that he wasn’t repeating himself. I wish that at the end of the movie I wasn’t asking “Anything else?”