Dir.
Woody Allen, US, 1979, 96 mins
Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel
Hemingway, Meryl Streep
Review by Joyce Dundas
The opening scenes of this movie will make
any writer laugh out loud as the voiceover of Woody Allen's
TV-writer character Isaac Davis loses his inner censor to
make his love of Manhattan a sexual one. The George Gershwin
score swells and the fireworks explode over that Manhattan
skyline. You may think it can get no better and you would
be wrong.
This is Allen at his best. He plays a neurotic 45-year-old
intellectual dating his 17-year-old student while he whines
on about his friend's extra-marital relationship, only to
cheat on his young girlfriend with his friend's mistress.
Yup, it's that easy. or difficult, or something that would
need a prozac prescription to solve, but at least Allen makes
it funny.
Mariel Hemingway plays his stunningly beautiful, talented,
intelligent girlfriend whom he doesn't really love, well
because he can't, she is just to threatening in a benign
way. The ride around Central Park in the horse-drawn carriage
means such different things to them both that it defines
their relationship.
Isaac then decides to over-complicate everything by falling
for his best friend's lover Mary Wilkie, played by Diane
Keaton. When he tries to talk to Hemingway's character Tracy
about moving on he mentions totally fictional names that
he thinks she may be dating like Biff, Tommy or Scooter,
and only then do we see that she is so much more mature than
he will ever be.
It's not a heavy film though, don't be scared, it is in
fact very funny., especially in any post-coital analysis.
Allen is at his best when he is self-deprecating. The film
may look and sound like it was shot in the '50s but the sentiments
and relationships are contemporary.
And New York has never looked so good. This is not an impersonal
city and Allen is determined to show you that. It is his
best love letter to the city and no-one has done it quite
on that scale since. After you watch this film when you cross
the TriBoro bridge in a taxi from the airport there is no
way you will not hear Gershwin play in your head and be filled
with awe for that magnificent skyline.
Thirtysomething, Friends. Seinfeld, in fact most nasal-gazing
humorous drama from the US since, took a very slow route
to mainstream. Allen managed to make self-loathing funny,
on the eve of the 80s, before 'Greed is good' made self-loving
that century's portentous statement.
As a writer there are great lines
in here: ”You think
you're God”, “Well, I have to model myself on
someone,” or “My analyst warned me, but you were
so beautiful I got another analyst”. Manhattan in monochrome
with a Gershwin soundtrack and Woody Allen's lines, the film
sells itself.
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