BEFORE: Now I'm really getting close to the end of the chain - just one Woody Allen film left after this one, which came out in 2012. I forgot to mention that an actress named Alison Pill was in "Midnight in Paris", playing Zelda Fitzgerald, and she also carries over into this film, making my linking a snap.
THE PLOT: The lives of some visitors and residents of Rome and the romances, adventures and predicaments they get into.
AFTER: This is another ensemble piece, taking the citizens of a particular place and detailing their romantic mishaps, but it's perhaps the most confounding of Woody Allen's films so far. There are four distinct storylines, but the characters are distinct within each segment, so it's unlike "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger", where the characters were all related as a family. Here the four segments do not seem to add up to form a larger story, so it's unclear why these stories were all included, and why other stories might not have been.
As for the stories themselves, they almost feel like poorly-told jokes, or anecdotes that you might hear from someone who's not very good at telling an interesting story. Let me try and explain - let's say I wanted to tell you a joke about a priest, a minister and a rabbi who walk into a bar. But instead of getting to the punchline, for some reason I determine that you need to know that the rabbi and the minister are brothers-in-law, and the minister and the priest were college roommates, and they all sit on some kind of interfaith council in their city. And they were all just at this council meeting together, which is why they're going to the bar at the same time. And perhaps I get so caught up in explaining the mechanics of this, I never get around to telling you the funny part.
One segment really feels like an unexplainable cartoon from New Yorker magazine - an American woman is engaged to an Italian man. Their relationship seems fairly normal, (or since neither is agonizing over an affair, let's say it's fairly ABnormal for a Woody Allen film...) and in fact their relationship only seems to exist to get her father, Jerry, to come and visit his future in-laws, where he hears the groom's father, Giancarlo, singing beautiful opera when showering.
This is a fairly normal occurrence, singing in the shower - many people do it, and some people feel they sing better in the shower. In this case, Jerry decides to mount an opera to showcase Giancarlo's amazing singing, but finds that when in a recording studio or on stage, his talent is gone. The solution? They stage an opera where he is on stage, his character is always showering and singing wonderfully. This is perhaps a great sight gag, but unfortunately a joke has to be rooted in reality, and this one is not.
It's not the water, or the soap, or even the relaxation that a shower supplies that makes someone sound better. It's the TILE in the bathroom, creating a better acoustic environment. But, Woody went ahead with the joke anyway and put a showering man on stage, in the middle of an opera, where there is no bathroom tile. Sorry, but the joke now simply does not work.
It's the same with the other segments, also - in another, a normal man suddenly gets the star treatment from the paparrazzi, and his every move is detailed by camera crews and photographers. What did he have for breakfast? Does he wear boxers or briefs? The reporters all want to know - but why? What happened to cause this sudden change? No explanation is given, and without this, whatever point was there to be made about sudden celebrity doesn't really land.
In a third segment, an older architect visits his old neighborhood in Rome, and appears to encounter a young man very similar to himself, or who he was years ago. They become friends, and the older man advises the younger one on matters of the heart - this man DOES have a typical relationship for a Woody Allen film, meaning that he's married to one woman but is also falling in love with another.
What's confusing is this - the older man seems to be always present, and sometimes the younger man talks to him, but the other characters around him do not (well, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't). So what's really taking place here? Is the older man just reminiscing, or did he really encounter a younger man whose situation reminds him of his own past? Or did he somehow walk into a time-vortex like the one in "Midnight in Paris", and is he interacting with his younger self?
This is confounding simply because the situation is not made entirely clear - as if someone couldn't be bothered to make sure we all understand what's happening. And if he IS interacting with his younger self, what would be the point of that? Even if you could talk to your younger self, you can't change what's about to happen to them, you could only give advice, which you know you're not going to take.
Here's what I think happened to Woody Allen - and now that I've seen so many films, I believe I can qualify as an expert. The guy made some great films - "Annie Hall", "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters" - nobody debates that. He has such a track record that he is probably given free rein to make whatever type of film he want - and therefore he is a position where his ideas are, more or less, critic-proof. Essentially, he's an independent filmmaker (I'm something of an expert on those, too), and has probably surrounded himself with a loyal crew that either can not or will not point out that an idea makes no sense. Or perhaps anyone who asks questions or says, "I don't understand this" is shown the door.
As a result of this, whatever idea Woody has, good or bad, makes it into the final film. And there doesn't seem to be any part of the process where ideas are approved or improved, the end result becomes whatever the director wants it to be, even if there is no rhyme or reason to it.
(NOTE: I'm sorry to have revealed so much of this film's plot. It was necessary to make my points, but I feel that I still left a LOT of story undiscussed. One whole segment, for example. Plus, even in the segments I discussed, there were twists and turns that I did not cover - my goal was not to deter anyone from viewing this film, so even if you read my review, please go ahead and enjoy that which I have not spoiled.)
Also starring Roberto Begnini (last seen in "Coffee and Cigarettes"), Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Alice"), Jesse Eisenberg (last seen in "The Social Network"), Ellen Page, Judy Davis (last seen in "Husbands and Wives"), Woody Allen (last seen in "Scoop"), Penelope Cruz (last seen in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), Greta Gerwig (last seen in "No Strings Attached"), Alessandro Tiberi, Alessandra Mastronardi, Fabio Armiliato, with cameos from Carol Alt, Ornella Muti.
RATING: 4 out of 10 Roman ruins
No comments:
Post a Comment