The new Woody Allen movie, “Melinda and Melinda,” takes a single character and spins out two parallel scenarios about her: one comic, one tragic.
Perhaps the single most revealing thing about this film is that Woody Allen is a more assured, more complete filmmaker in the serious half than the comic half. Ah, the days of “Bananas” and “Love and Death” are receding in the memory.
| For more than fans: Woody Allen presents parallel stories of a messed-up woman (an excellent Radha Mitchell) arriving in Manhattan – one story comic, one tragic. Allen seems more assured in the serious section, but the movie is engaging and folks such as Will Ferrell and Chloe Sevigny come through nicely.
Rated: PG-13 rating is for subject matter. Now showing: Guild 45th Theater, Seattle |
The good news is, a great deal of “Melinda and Melinda” is sharp, amusing, and well-acted. Allen’s not back to his 1979 form, but he’s more engaged with the material than he’s been in a while.
The premise comes out of a dinner conversation between two playwrights, one a comedy writer (Wallace Shawn) and the other a tragedy specialist (Larry Pine). They begin with the situation of a woman arriving on the doorstep of Manhattan friends, and each spins his own version of what happens next. Allen cuts back and forth between the two stories.
The woman in both is Melinda, a messed-up but alluring type, played by Radha Mitchell. In the comic half, she gets into the lives of a documentary filmmaker (Amanda Peet) and her sweet-natured actor husband (Will Ferrell), as hubby gradually falls in love with her.
In the serious story, Melinda moves in with an old school friend (just-right Chloe Sevigny) and her abrasive actor husband (Jonny Lee Miller). When Melinda begins dating a composer (Chiwetel Ejiofor, from “Dirty Pretty Things”), it upsets a precarious balance.
The movie thus focuses on something that Allen has always been good at capturing -romantic tensions and delights. The parallel storytelling stops feeling like a gimmick after a while, and actually suggests the intriguing closeness of tragedy and comedy in life.
Allen’s joke-writing recalls a different era – the era of Shecky Greene and Allan King and Johnny Carson. It doesn’t really work anymore, and there are few actors who can work in that mode.
I have a nostalgic affection for that old-school humor, even when it falls flat. Likable Will Ferrell doesn’t come from that school, and he looks and sounds overawed to be in a Woody Allen movie, especially at first. He warms up as it goes along – he’s especially funny during a wacky outing to the Hamptons to visit the home of a dentist (Josh Brolin), or attempting to seduce a neurotic woman (Vinessa Shaw) to take his mind off his other problems.
What works best is the deepest performance anybody’s had a chance to give in a Woody Allen movie in a long time, namely Radha Mitchell’s work as the two Melindas. The blue-eyed, fine-boned Aussie performer, lately seen rather thanklessly in “Finding Neverland,” has been threatening to break through as a major actress, and this film confirms it.
There’s also satisfaction in the film’s rich look. Longtime Allen collaborator and production designer Santo Loquasto must be running out of Manhattan locations for these movies, but he once again comes up with lush apartments and simple street corners that create Allen’s fairy-tale world. Kudos, too, to veteran cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, for burnishing it all so yummily.
“Melinda and Melinda” will appeal most to the dwindling band of die-hard Woody Allen fans, but at least there’s something here for others. That hasn’t been true for a while.
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