Celluloid Heroes

Of course we communicate. Now can we not talk about it?

Woody Allen films can be an acquired taste, and I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t truly acquired it. I’ve admired some of his films individually, like Hannah and Her Sisters, but not enough that news of a new Allen film automatically draws me out to the theater.

Whatever your opinion of Woody Allen films, Melinda and Melinda is unlikely to change your mind. It’s a film so specifically targeted at Woody Allen’s core audience that it’s actually a little off-putting to those who don’t fit into that demographic.

To its credit, the film employs an intriguing structure. Four friends, including playwrights Sy (Wallace Shawn) and Max (Larry Pine) are eating dinner, arguing whether life is a tragedy or a comedy. Their friend, Al (Neil Pepe) tells them a story about woman named Melinda barging into a dinner party. The two writers spin separate tales of how the story plays out from there, one tragic, one comedic, and the film switches between the two versions.

In both storys, Melinda is played by Rhada Mitchell, a fresh and very versatile actress. In the tragedy, she’s a strung-out basket case who cheated on her husband, lost custody of her kids and attempted suicide. She comes to stay at the home of her old friend Laurel (Chloë Sevigny) and her husband, Lee (Jonny Lee Miller), a frustrated actor with a drinking problem. In the comedy, she’s simply the slightly dinghy neighbor of filmmaker Susan (Amanda Peet) and her out-of-work actor husband, Hobie (Will Farrell).

The most obvious flaw with the film is that it doesn’t treat both stories equally. It’s clear that Allen comes down on the side of tragedy because it is that story upon which he lavishes the most attention. Naturally, that’s the side of the film that works. Rhada Mitchell is particularly affecting in role that requires her to be wound like a coiled spring throughout the story.

The comedic half is, well, not that comedic. Perhaps Allen was using “comedy” in the more classic sense, that of a story with a happy ending, the true opposite of a tragedy. However, when you bill the story as a comedy and cast Will Farrell in the lead, the audience comes in with certain expectations. Even as a lighter drama, the Will Farrell half of the film falls flat. Characters are shallow and their problems seem inconsequential and uninteresting, especially compared to the other half.

The tragic portion of the film would have made a superior stand alone film, if not saddled with its dim-bulbed twin and the stuffy bridging story. The discussion between the two playwrights that sets up the film doesn’t sound like a conversation real people would have, unless real people included upper middle class Manhattan art snobs in a Woody Allen film. Shawn and Pine argue their points in a pedantic fashion that dares the audience not to care. And the script drops high-culture names like Allen is trying to get past the rope of some kind of arty night club.

Melinda and Melinda is part of a good movie stuck with some embarrassing relations that keep it from reaching its full potential.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 12th, 2005 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. Tags: 2004, Comedy, Drama, Rated PG-13, Woody Allen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Paul's cat has violent mood swings between ennui and apathy.