Written and directed by Woody Allen, also a main star, "Anything Else" has the virtue of bringing some new lines and funny scenes to the Manhattan he adores. And today's Upper West Side audience fully enjoyed the quips, at least a few of which, as always, won't be understood much north of the George Washington Bridge. And certainly not south of it.
Forever neurotic, and perhaps the only comedian who can get a laugh with a joke about Auschwitz, Allen plays a single, graying comedy writer with a day job as a public high school teacher. His character is named David Dobel. Forget it, it's irrelevant. This is the same Woody we've known for decades pontificating on every possible subject to young protege, Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs). Falk, a comedy writer who seems to be doing well, is living with drop-dead-beautiful Amanda (Christina Ricci) who has developed a hangup about having sex with her lover. A frustrating situation. Made worse by the arrival of Amanda's mom, Paula (played with devastating scene-stealing by Stockard Channing).
Falk has an agent, Harvey (Danny De Vito). De Vito's fine but we've seen him do this kind of character often and while amusing there's nothing special here.
Biggs, a young actor, is believable as he struggles to hold on to his girlfriend whose perplexing behavior seems to have no discernible cause. Allen uses his familiar technique of having a main character, here Falk, frequently speak to the audience.
What is special is the increasingly interesting Ricci whose ability to shift moods from seductive to exasperated to bitchy is marvelous. A real talent here-she's got a lot of room to grow.
I won't spoil anyone's fun but one line, which should have produced mild smiles, rocked the audience with raucous laughter. Why? Because no filmmaker, not even Woody, can predict the future.
I don't know how well "Anything Else" will play outside a few big cities and some campuses and even there long runs aren't likely. Don't go if you've had a surfeit of Allen in the past ten years. No one can claim this is a great film as are some of his earlier ones. But if, like me, you're loyal to a brilliant comic who zeroes in on many of our civilization's discontents (you didn't think he'd give up on harpooning analysts, did you?), this is a good, fun film. And the scenes shot in Gotham are great, some within a five-minute walk of the theater.
A comfortable, even comforting, experience for all who now wait for Woody's NEXT movie. I'm one of them.
7/10.
Forever neurotic, and perhaps the only comedian who can get a laugh with a joke about Auschwitz, Allen plays a single, graying comedy writer with a day job as a public high school teacher. His character is named David Dobel. Forget it, it's irrelevant. This is the same Woody we've known for decades pontificating on every possible subject to young protege, Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs). Falk, a comedy writer who seems to be doing well, is living with drop-dead-beautiful Amanda (Christina Ricci) who has developed a hangup about having sex with her lover. A frustrating situation. Made worse by the arrival of Amanda's mom, Paula (played with devastating scene-stealing by Stockard Channing).
Falk has an agent, Harvey (Danny De Vito). De Vito's fine but we've seen him do this kind of character often and while amusing there's nothing special here.
Biggs, a young actor, is believable as he struggles to hold on to his girlfriend whose perplexing behavior seems to have no discernible cause. Allen uses his familiar technique of having a main character, here Falk, frequently speak to the audience.
What is special is the increasingly interesting Ricci whose ability to shift moods from seductive to exasperated to bitchy is marvelous. A real talent here-she's got a lot of room to grow.
I won't spoil anyone's fun but one line, which should have produced mild smiles, rocked the audience with raucous laughter. Why? Because no filmmaker, not even Woody, can predict the future.
I don't know how well "Anything Else" will play outside a few big cities and some campuses and even there long runs aren't likely. Don't go if you've had a surfeit of Allen in the past ten years. No one can claim this is a great film as are some of his earlier ones. But if, like me, you're loyal to a brilliant comic who zeroes in on many of our civilization's discontents (you didn't think he'd give up on harpooning analysts, did you?), this is a good, fun film. And the scenes shot in Gotham are great, some within a five-minute walk of the theater.
A comfortable, even comforting, experience for all who now wait for Woody's NEXT movie. I'm one of them.
7/10.