Woody Allen

  • You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

    You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2021) Coming from the end of his London period, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger has writer-director Woody Allen at his most inconclusive. As an ensemble film following many, many characters as they all go through personal trials in contemporary London, the film does have its strength. The best of those is clearly the cast. At the time, Allen could still attract top talent, and that’s how the film features no less an eclectic group than Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch or Naomi Watts. The story arguably gets rolling when (in early flashbacks) a long-time couple divorces. She turns to fortune-telling to make sense of her life, while he turns to younger women for hire. (He eventually gets married to one such escort, with predictable results.)  Their daughter is having a hard time with her novelist husband, who earns “most despicable character” status after he starts an affair with a neighbour and steals a book manuscript from a friend in a coma. There are plenty of small subplots, but the common theme running through all of them is that the film ends just as things were getting interesting for all the characters — the new husband is unsure of his paternity; the thieving writer is dumped and aware that his novelist friend came out of his coma; the daughter is unable to start her own gallery… and so on. It’s very much a tale of stories interrupted, and while this is clearly the intention, it doesn’t make the film any better. (Allen would then leave London to go on a rejuvenating European tour for his next few films.)  Not every Allen film is a solid hit, but You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger seems more disappointing than most: all build-up, no conclusion.

  • Interiors (1978)

    Interiors (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) It’s a good thing that Interiors is well known as one of Woody Allen’s most deliberately serious films — an attempt to go over austere Bergmanesque family drama territory in a way that consciously seeks to oppose itself from Allen’s ”earlier, funnier films.”  Even so, I was sorely tempted to giggle through much of the film — Allen’s painstaking approach at re-creating the sparse rhythm, tortured relationships and Scandinavian aesthetics of his model can approach parody at times. I don’t usually respond well to such torpid movies anyway, so you’ll understand if it doesn’t work this time around. (On the other hand, I actually welcomed the final death of the film, considering how annoying I found the character — and how it was telegraphed well before.)  Anyone will be on firmer grounds in considering the film as an actor’s showcase — with special affection for the trio of sisters (Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt and Kristin Griffith) who are the true protagonists of the story. People act badly all around them, whether it’s unreliable partners, a crush who becomes a would-be rapist, or a father choosing to leave their mother after decades of marriage (while not directly telling her that). Maureen Stapleton shines as one of the few expressive characters in the entire film. While Interiors got good reviews at the time and still figures among Allen’s better-rated work, it’s clearly not as special today as it was back then — the filmmaker’s output has grown to be incredibly diverse and not necessarily comic, explaining why Interiors feels far more ordinary (yet more obviously a pastiche) than it did. Modern viewers who, like me, have a strong preference for Allen in comic mode may watch Interiors without the reverence by which it’s seen by many critics.

  • Wonder Wheel (2017)

    Wonder Wheel (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) While Woody Allen’s life has long been shrouded in controversy, there was a definite shift in public opinion against him during 2017’s #MeToo movement, as tolerance for his numerous personal relationships with younger women became unacceptable to a much wider audience. In that chronology, Wonder Wheel may be the last of the pre-controversy Allen movies and also the last with plausible deniability from casual fans. (Meanwhile, everyone who watched Manhattan in theatres is left thinking, “Hey, we knew there was something off with the guy back in the 1970s!”)  It’s also likely to be one of Allen’s last “normal” films — he’s 85, just wrote a controversial autobiography and is going to be scrutinized forever, so it’s unlikely that he’s going to go back to his past production rhythm that led to a very long uninterrupted streak of annual movies. For better or for worse, Wonder Wheel is unmistakably a Woody Allen film: While it starts in a nostalgic vein reminiscent of Radio Days by taking us back to 1950s Coney Island, the lighthearted autobiographical bent soon becomes a lead-in to a more dramatic tale of adultery and jealousy à la Café Society, then of criminal intention à la Irrational Man. In other words, we’re in familiar territory well beyond the Windsor typeface and jazz music. While the spectacular opening shot of Coney Island beach shows that even Allen can use CGI to draw a historical tableau, much of the film is in his usual low-key style, with a character providing a running narration to tie together the scenes without having to shoot the connective plotting material. Acting-wise, it’s a typically gifted ensemble: Justin Timberlake as the dreamy beach monitor moonlighting as an author and narrator, Kate Winslet as the tortured lead, the ever-cute Juno Temple as the object of temptation and Jim Belushi in an unusually effective dramatic role. Think the worst of Allen-the-man (I do!), but as a filmmaker he’s long been able to deliver something interesting, even on full autopilot. The story does show signs of not quite being a coherent whole, with far too many digressions before getting to a quick finale, but it’s still watchable enough. This being said, the meta-narrative surrounding the movie is more interesting: While Allen may be on the verge of being disgraced out of the industry (his two subsequent films have been haphazardly distributed following Amazon’s decision to break their five-film contract), it may be time to start looking at his body of work as near-finite. I’m still not sure how I feel about that—I’ve had trouble enjoying many of his films on their own merits, but he was a major filmmaker for a very long time and even his steady-as-it-goes output away from the high points of the 1970s–1980s has been consistently interesting as long as you go along with his specific blend of nostalgia, philosophy, crime and strong actor showcases. We may come to look at Wonder Wheel as the last of the films he made within the American film industry, and that’s something perhaps more interesting than what the film is about.

  • My Generation (2017)

    My Generation (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2021) In a career now spanning seven decades, Michael Caine has not always starred in good movies, but he has established his screen persona as an exemplar of British cool, whether it’s the handsome cad of his early years or the refined gentleman of his retirement era. As such, he’s nearly the perfect person to host My Generation, a documentary look at the Swingin’ Sixties experienced in Britain, as a new generation took control of the cultural weathervane after the quiet postwar generation. Having Caine as a narrator enables director David Batty to intercut footage of current-day Caine with some of his 1960s films, clearly linking past and present in a way that would have been impossible with anyone else. A whirlwind mixture of historical footage, current-day interviews with notable celebrities of the time (although only Caine appears on-screen), practised anecdotes and truly terrific music, My Generation is far more impressionistic than analytical: Crucial points are dismissed in a sentence or two, while the film goes for audiovisual overload in mixing classic tunes (such as the titular The Who song) with fast-paced montages. That’s fine—if you accept that you’re riding along with Caine for a somewhat superficial overview of a specific time and place, why ask for more? A few moments stand out, either with Caine recounting how he stumbled upon an early live performance by The Beatles while shooting in Liverpool (amazing if true!), or footage showing Twiggy besting interviewer Woody Allen by turning the tables on his pretentious questioning. You can hear such notables as Paul McCartney and Joan Collins along the way, goofing off with Caine during interviews that were probably much longer. Caine’s delivery is impeccable, which helps a lot in going along for the ride. It’s not meant to be a complete story: My Generation ends on how drugs took out the winds of the overindulging generation, but stops short of detailing much of it, nor wondering if things could have been different. This is a film about the glory days, after all. I would normally bristle at yet another Baby Boomer navel-gazing, but My Generation shouldn’t suffer for the excesses of others nor the familiarity of the subject: it’s bouncy fun at its best, and the prospect of spending nearly ninety minutes alongside a chatty Michael Caine is hard to resist no matter what.

  • Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

    Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) I can objectively recognize that Crimes and Misdemeanors is a good movie and I can understand those who maintain that it’s one of writer-director Woody Allen’s best… but I don’t have to agree. Much of this disagreement is the overwhelming impression, sometimes left by his later movies, that we’ve seen all of this before. Taking place in Allen’s favourite upper-middle-class Manhattanite intellectual strata, it’s a film that blends witty dialogue, existential musings, comedy and drama in a mixture very much like, well, half a dozen of Allen’s other films, perhaps most closely with Manhattan Murder Mystery (which, in retrospect, can almost be called an affectionate parody), but also backward to Manhattan for the setting and character and forward to Irrational Man for the nods to existentialism. In other words, if you’ve seen the rest of Allen’s filmography, Crimes and Misdemeanors (to which I’m a late, late arrival) doesn’t hold anything new. It does not entirely help that the film abruptly gains meaning, narrative coherency and an extra star (or whatever you call a better reviewer’s grade) in its final scene, as it finally melds the twin strands of the plot into something looking like a point. Oh, I still liked it: No matter what I think of seeing Allen as a nebbish loser blowing up his marriage with extramarital longing, there’s still a comfortable atmosphere to the result, and despite what I just said, I’m not going to begrudge him another exploration of New York City intellectuals. The acting talent assembled here is, as usual, splendid: Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston as a semi-hysterical mistress… yes, that does it. The comedy here is well dosed with the drama and the philosophical suspense, providing a film that neither errs too heavily on the side of ruminations nor (alas) on the side of absurd gags. It’s finely controlled, and my quip about the plots fusing only in the end scene is belied by plenty of thematic transitions between the two subplots. Still, I can’t help but feel that, given my zigzagging path through Allen’s filmography, I have come to Crimes and Misdemeanors too late to enjoy it at its fullest.

  • The Front (1976)

    The Front (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Unusually enough, The Front features Woody Allen in a pure acting performance—within a film that he neither directed nor wrote. But you can understand why Allen would accept the project when you take a look at what the film is about—set in the 1950s, it’s about screenwriters put on the blacklist who hire the services of a store clerk (Allen) as a front to present their scripts to entertainment executives. The film’s aims are clear once the credits roll and a good chunk of the film’s topline crew (starting with director Martin Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein and lead actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough) have their names accompanied by a note telling us when they were placed on the blacklist—and of course, those who know about Dalton Trumbo’s career will recall how he kept working under various pseudonyms, even winning Academy Awards as someone else. Parts of The Front are quite funny: helped by Allen’s nerdy charm, the film coasts a bit on his ability to portray a sympathetic loser. But as befit the topic, the film has some less amusing turns toward the end, as the illusion dissipates and the film goes for a well-deserved “take that!” at the idiocy of McCarthyism. While not necessarily well known these days, The Front is a welcome act of reclamation by blacklisted Hollywood people, acting as a marker and a bit of wish fulfillment by those who were sidelined by the excessive paranoia of the time.

  • Café Society (2016)

    Café Society (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2020) I’ve made my peace with the idea that, despite my overall dubiousness about Woody Allen’s personal life, I will eventually see most of his movies. The latter half of his career has been exceptionally consistent: A mixture of some nostalgia, straightforward plotting, capable actors and no-nonsense filmmaking. Occasionally, a performance will get nominated for the Oscars, or a topic matter will strike the imagination of specific people—and that’s how I feel with the Golden Age Hollywood material in Café Society. Much of the film’s first half is spent in the shadows of the movie studio system of the 1930s, as a young man moves from New York to Los Angeles in the hope of something better in service of his uncle, a powerful studio executive. The patter is heavy with movie reference that would have completely flummoxed me before taking a crash course in classic movies, and that’s part of the fun as the characters name-drop like crazy. Don’t expect to spend much time on set, as the film is limited by its budget to show us tight angles on exteriors and sets that can approximate 1930s Los Angeles. That part of the film is actually fun, and shot with luminous clarity. Then things get more complicated, as our protagonist unsuccessfully romances his uncle’s secretary and eventually decides, upon being rebuffed, to go back to New York, where he’s able to help his mobster brother set up a nightclub. Much of Café Society’s second half plays off the thrill of the first, letting the pieces of an unconsummated romance fall where they are exposed in time for the wistful ending. It’s not bad, but it’s not designed to make you feel happy: the more the film advances, the more it becomes apparent that it’s reaching for regret rather than laughs. Oh well; that’s where Allen wants to go for this film. At least the acting talent is worth a look: Now that Allen merely narrates the film, Jesse Eisenberg is probably one of the two best actors to play Allen-like characters and his second time doing so after To Rome with Love. Kirsten Stewart is not bad opposite him, although she once again plays a very specific kind of character. Steve Carell flexes some antagonist muscles as the uncle wooing the same girl. In the end, the rush of the opening half having dissipated, Café Society fells like many, many twenty-first century Allen movies: pleasant enough to watch, with some good actors along the way and a decent-enough plot to follow, but not particularly memorable or worth getting excited about. Even by his latest standards, it’s middle-tier material.

  • Radio Days (1987)

    Radio Days (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) As much as I have a lot of unflattering things to say about Woody Allen, I’ll take a break from it in discussing Radio Days, as the film almost deserves to live on its own. The irony is that it’s clearly a semi-autobiographical tale, telling us about the late-1930s and early 1940s, when radio reigned over the lives of ordinary people, before TV took over everything. Our protagonist is a boy (an incredibly young Seth Green) who obsesses about the shows he hears—but from him the narrative sprawls to cover his family, his friends and the actors playing the characters he idolizes. It’s 85 minutes of thick nostalgia, and it’s so effective that it works even for those who weren’t there by a few generations. The historical recreation of New York City (Manhattan for the radio personalities, Queens for the protagonist) is convincing for a mid-1980s film. The soundtrack is really good and the episodic structure does come together more readily than most films of this type. It all culminates in a poignant send-off that also nods at an entire era. Radio Days may not be my favourite Woody Allen film, but it’s certainly in the top tier.

  • Husbands and Wives (1992)

    Husbands and Wives (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2020) One of the issues with Woody Allen and trying to separate his art from his somewhat unsettling life is that his movies are big giant signposts telling us about his state of mind at any given time. Husbands and Wives, for instance, is a tale of marital dissatisfaction that just happened to come out at the end of his relationship with Mia Farrow—with Farrow and Allen fighting it out on celluloid. Whew. There’s more, of course—the seediest things in Allen’s filmography are the constant relationships between much older men and women at most half his age, and we get that once again here—hey, Allen, can’t you at least stop writing that stuff in your scripts? As for Husbands and Wives itself, there’s a reason why it generally holds up when compared to the other Allen films of that era: the intense navel-gazing eventually leads somewhere, and the film doesn’t even unfairly evoke the memory of Allen’s comedies. The mixture of Manhattan DINK lifestyle, documentary style and messy examination of personal foibles is certainly classic Allen, done in a still interesting-enough way compared to some of his later works. He also, as usual, gets great performances from his supporting cast: Juliette Lewis makes an impression in a more sedate role than the ones she’d play throughout most of the 1990s, a rising-star Liam Neeson barges into the plot and Blythe Danner makes a very quick appearance. Husbands and Wives is a kind of film best suited for adult audiences, not so much for any risqué content than because it’s glum and unromantic about long-term relationships—and it takes some living to relate to that.

  • Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

    Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) As a reviewer, I often have issues in discussing Woody Allen movies from the 1980s. They often fall into a good-enough zone that escapes sustained critical discussion. They’re (canonically) not as funny as his earlier 1960s movies, not quite the specific genre or character exercise that his later 1990s+ movies would become, and certainly not (at a few exceptions) as groundbreaking as the 1970s ones. There is, in other words, an evenness to them, even in their quality, that makes it difficult to dissect. (My review of Bullets over Broadway is one of the shortest on this site.) In that context, Broadway Danny Rose, is an ironic story gently told, offering just enough space for Allen to play his usual persona and for Mia Farrow to grab a striking mafia moll role. The framing device has to do with comedians at a New York deli (the New York deli, some argue) telling themselves tales about Danny Rose, and one of them taking up the most defining tale of them all—how perennial loser impresario Danny Rose went through hell for one of his clients and his mistress, only to be dumped by the client. In the grand scheme of Allen movies, Broadway Danny Rose is at once comforting—here’s Allen playing his utmost persona and doing it perfectly—and somewhat atypical, as the heroine is about as far from Allen’s usual intellectuals as it’s possible to be. Shot in black-and-white for artistic reasons that I find uninteresting, the film is also a look at the Manhattan impresario milieu and the incredible length at which they will go to for their clients. Broadway Danny Rose is a bit sad even despite the jokes and it does wrap up to an intriguing whole… a bit like most of Allen’s 1980s films.

  • Bananas (1971)

    Bananas (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Play Streaming, December 2019) This film is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s celebrate how this film was one of Woody Allen’s prototypical “earlier, funnier” movies—a non-stop carnival of absurdist jokes strung on a thin plot about a nebbish New Yorker (Allen himself, naturally) getting embroiled in a banana republic revolution. Definitely dated to early-1970s politics and pop culture, the film still gets its laughs today—the courtroom sequence that dominates the third act of the film is an all-time Allen highlight. The film reaches everywhere for jokes, never feeling over-attached to realism or even narrative consistency. It’s certainly one of the most overly comic films in Allen’s filmography, free from any attempt at pathos, drama or philosophical concerns—it’s a pure joke machine. While I can understand Allen’s desire to move forward with more nuanced fare later in life (and let’s remember that Allen was around 36 at the time of Bananas’ production—not exactly a young man even then) I wish he had done a few more overly comic movies with the verve, inventiveness and go-for-broke pacing that can be found in Bananas. No matter, though: the film is still worth a look today, and it’s still hilarious. Fans of the spoof comedies of the ZAZ era will find a curiously similar rhythm here.

  • Take the Money and Run (1969)

    Take the Money and Run (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, December 2019) When it comes to Woody Allen’s “earlier, funnier movies,” you can’t get much earlier nor much funnier than Take the Money and Run, his first real directorial effort. (While he’s credited as director on What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, that was more of a rearrangement and creative re-dubbing of an existing feature.)  A then-innovative mockumentary featuring a singularly inept bank robber (Allen, obviously), it’s really an excuse for him to throw in as much silliness as possible in a single movie. The jokes start early and seldom let up—and there’s a lot of physical comedy as well. Even at this early point, it’s easy to see the future direction of Allen’s career—the mockumentary form reused in Zelig (or, more generally, the experimentation with form that would reoccur especially in the first half of his career) and the gag-a-minute pacing of his earlier-funnier films. Perhaps more importantly, Take the Money and Run’s best sustained sequence has to do with his talking about romantic relationships, a leitmotif which would form the backbone of his best movies. It’s all wonderfully silly—and contemporary viewers will be surprised to hear a rearrangement of “Soul Bossa Nova” (better known as the Austin Powers theme these days) on the soundtrack. Not particularly ambitious, Take the Money and Run is nonetheless quite successful—it still gets its laughs.

  • The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

    The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2019) OK, this was a fun one—in a decade when Woody Allen movies started with the introspective Stardust Memories telling us about his “earlier, funnier ones” and moved on to what would become Allen’s contemporary blend of gentle comedy and drama (culminating in Manhattan Murder Mystery, which would best exemplify Allen’s tone for a while), The Purple Rose of Cairo stands out as a metafictional high-concept homage to 1930s film. The plot gets going in a Depression-era small-town, as a young woman with problems escapes to the movies … and has the star walking off the screen to meet her. They fall in love, but the best part of the film is how it keeps poking at its premise and developing a little bit farther than strictly necessary, having some fun along the way. (Real life doesn’t fade to black in intimate scenes, for instance.)  Some of the development does leave us wanting more, though—the brief mentions of other actors springing to life do land us in a territory that is never properly explored.   The recreation of a 1930s comedy film is convincing and a delight if you’re familiar with the era. The bittersweet ending is disappointing, though: a bit more light would have been helpful, although the protagonist finds herself in a better place if only for not being stuck in the same relationship. Still, compared to other Allen movies of the era (the bizarre Zelig excepted), The Purple Rose of Cairo does feel more high-concept, funnier, breezier.

  • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)

    Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2019) Time advances and leaves some things behind—watching writer-director Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask feels like a relic of an earlier era. Very loosely adapted from a then-bestselling sex advice book (the only material kept being the questions, answered by comic sketches penned by Allen), it’s an anthology film with the typical strengths and weaknesses of the form. Much of the subject matter has gone from shocking to boring in half a century flat, leaving only such things as humour and acting to keep the thing afloat. Fans of Allen’s nebbish persona will get a few treats along the way—the opening segment has him anachronistically riffing as a court jester with designs on the queen, while a later quite amusing segment has him face off against a mad sex research scientist and then a gigantic disembodied breast. Easily at its best when it’s at its most absurd, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask hits a comic highlight in a sequence describing the inner workings of a male body during a one-night stand (featuring Burt Reynolds in what’s possibly his weirdest cameo), or when it lets Gene Wilder work through a bestiality premise to its dumbest conclusion. Much of the rest of the film, alas, is just dull. A sketch about a TV show based on fetishism must have felt old even back in 1972, while another about exhibitionism feels like a single joke extended over several long minutes. There’s a cross-dressing sequence that fails to get a single smile—the conflation between cross-dressing and homosexuality has aged poorly. Despite those misfires, this is one of Allen’s “earlier, funnier movies,” and it does give a glimpse at Allen’s glib genius, his madcap imagination (long since abandoned) and his most likable screen persona. This being said, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask does remain more vulnerable than most of Allen’s early films to our changing perception of Allen as a highly problematic figure when it comes to sexual relationships—even if the age difference between him and his other co-stars such as Lynn Redgrave here is a “mere” eight years or so. Some things do age poorly … like Allen himself.

  • Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

    Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) We’ll get to the crux of the Woody Allen Problem in a few sentences, but Magic in the Moonlight, taken at face value, is ordinary late-period Allen, gentle and romantic and icky and a bit ordinary even as it’s perfectly enjoyable. The biggest strengths of the film are its actors, especially Colin Firth as a skeptical magician being asked to unmask a suspected fake psychic, and Emma Stone playing said psychic. Both are quite good, even though they may not necessarily belong in the same story. But criticizing Woody Allen for older-man-much-younger-woman romance is like taking Spike Lee to task for a focus on race relation (well, or would be except that Lee’s agenda is actually socially admirable)—what else needs to be said? Still, the story isn’t that stunning—the focus on magic has been done in other Allen movie, and this one feels like a fairly limp attempt to tackle matters of faith and skepticism. The humour is more comfortable than hilarious (the biggest laugh of the film comes from a character revealing himself from behind a chair) and the dialogue is cute without being particularly revelatory. It feels like discount Allen from Allen himself, retreading familiar ground without extending himself. This being said, the film is visually remarkable—the portrait of the 1920s French Riviera is lush enough that we wish we could go there for a holiday, and it’s bolstered by some better-than-average cinematography for an Allen film. Substantial qualms about the rote intergenerational romance aside (and I’ll grant you that it takes a considerable amount of willpower to put it aside), Magic in the Moonlight is a serviceable film, not unpleasant but not worth harping about. It may help viewers wean themselves off Allen as he becomes older and less acceptable. As of five years later, Allen finally seems marginalized by the industry, with distributor troubles and a more irregular production schedule. (2018 was, if I’m not mistaken, the first year since 1981 in which there wasn’t “a new Woody Allen movie” in theatres.)  Like an occasionally amusing guest who keeps pestering young women, Allen may finally have overstayed his welcome … and it’s about time.