BEFORE: I get to skip over a few more Woody Allen films, since I had a run in the mid-1990's where I was going to the movies a lot. I've seen "Manhattan Murder Mystery", "Bullets Over Broadway" and "Mighty Aphrodite", and I'll get to skip over a few more tomorrow. I wish I had more time to re-watch those films, to put them in the proper context, it's a shame I have this thing called a job that takes up much of my time.
But I liked all three of those films, and I never saw this one - here's a terrible thought, what if I've already seen all of the GOOD Woody Allen films, and I'm left with just the stinkers? Well, that's what I aim to find out. Woody carries over as an actor from "Husbands and Wives".
THE PLOT: A New York girl sets her father up with a beautiful woman in a shaky marriage while her half sister gets engaged.
AFTER: Much has probably been already discussed about the use of music in this film - at times it is warranted by the plot (a man serenading his wife while playing piano at a party) and at other times it is not (a song-and-dance number that breaks out in a respected jewelry shop). The more unlikely the setting, the more the use of music reminds us that we are watching a film, that these are not real people but actors, and unfortunately this can affect the audience's ability to suspend their disbelief.
At the same time, however, it's a throwback to the movie musicals of the 1930's, when characters would break into song for no reason - and sometimes, even then, that led to some awkward questions - as in "Hey, those characters are standing out on the Oklahoma prairie - where's that orchestra music coming from?" Other people might watch those films (or this one) and not question the use of song and dance at all - like it's the most natural thing for everyone in a jewelry store or a supermarket or a hospital to know all the same steps in a dance routine.
I guess it depends on how conditioned you are to watching movie musicals. You could get used to seeing this (especially if you've seen a flash mob dance) or, like me, you could have seen so many movie musicals that you're above it all. "Wait a minute, if they all know that dance, that means they rehearsed it, and that means the dance wasn't spontaneous at all! I've been hoodwinked!" So, you see, there are ups and downs inherent with reviving this old format.
In addition, by this time we all (or maybe it's just me) are conditioned to certain types of Woody Allen's recurring themes - upper-class New Yorkers, couples agonizing over their marriages, Woody dates a younger girl, etc., we don't expect the characters to break into song. And this film has all those things - a large blended family where Woody plays the ex-husband ("Hannah and Her Sisters"), a convict helps his friends break out of jail ("Take the Money and Run"), someone listens in on therapy sessions ("Another Woman"), a woman wants to do a lot of charity work ("Alice"), and Woody's a neurotic writer with ex-wife issues who seems to only date crazy women (umm, every one of his films? That seems to be a constant.)
And to his credit, Woody was trying something new (well, old, but still new) by adding music. Too bad there were mixed results, because some actors can really sing well (Edward Norton), and others just can't (sorry, Drew Barrymore). Alan Alda sings about as well as you'd expect, and Julia Roberts slightly better than you might expect. Other actors weren't asked to sing at all, and I think we can draw our own conclusions about that. I'm not even sure all of them can act (sorry, Natalie...)
EDIT: I strongly suspected that Ms. Barrymore did not do her own singing, just because her singing voice sounded nothing like her speaking voice. A glance through the song credits on IMDB seems to support this, which suggests that maybe they recorded her singing and then dubbed in another voice, or perhaps from the start she was lip-synching to a pre-recorded track. Either way, the result is the same.
But again we've got a narration, which in this case tends to make the film feel more disjointed, not less. For everything that it explains, it also confuses two more things. "Did we say that springtime was the best time to be in New York? We should have said summer was the best time, because everyone who's anyone is gone on vacation. Umm, except us. No, I should have said that winter was the best time to be in New York, because that's when we all go to Paris." Wait, what? The characters can't even seem to keep their own opinions straight. Maybe they're just flaky people, but I need a little more than that.
Also starring Julia Roberts (last seen in "Larry Crowne"), Edward Norton (last seen in "Stone"), Drew Barrymore (last seen in "Never Been Kissed"), Alan Alda (last seen in "Tower Heist"), Goldie Hawn (last seen in "Cactus Flower"), Natasha Lyonne, Natalie Portman (last seen in "No Strings Attached"), Lukas Haas (last seen in "Lincoln"), Gaby Hoffman, Tim Roth (last seen in "The Musketeer"), Billy Crudup (last seen in "The Watch"), Edward Hibbert, with cameos from Itzhak Perlman, Tony Sirico, David Ogden Stiers (last seen in "Shadows and Fog").
RATING: 5 out of 10 gondolas
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