Anything Else

Having had to visit Woody Allen's previous two films on Region One dvd (Hollywood Ending and Curse of the Jade Scorpion) it's actually quite a revelation to see the white on black characters appear on a cinema screen -- I'd forgotten how that looked and the anticipation of what the first moments will be as the usual jazz track plays out, it feels comfortable and familiar. And its this familiarity which fuels the film -- for the first time in a while we are back in the Manhattan of the here and now watching a character based story. Although his films have been no less enjoyable lately they have hung on a concept or mcguffin which drives the plot when for me he's always been more comfortable exploring characters within a simpler structure. Which is why Anything Else works so well.

Yet again I find myself rush headlong against general critical opinion. Does it do anything absolutely new? No. Does it at times feel like Woody Allen by numbers? Yes. But it doesn't matter. I would much rather go to the cinema and see something with a script which is half literate with a good 10-15 belly laughs and god forbid actually makes me thing than the usual crud which passes itself off as a smart twentysomething comedy. The magic this time is that despite what poster might being telling you these aren't perfect characters. For once the director lets their mess of neurosis come into conflict and see what happens.

Jason Biggs like most people in their early twenties doesn't know what they want but can't break from the life they've been dropped into (its actually a much stronger performance than people are giving him credit for -- compare his work here to Loser and you can see he's learnt a few things in the intervening years. Woody himself might be the mentor of the piece but he's also a psychoanalytical mess (and the director seems to enjoy not having to carry the film as well as write and direct it -- he's always underestimated his talents but here he's very touching). Christina Ricci is adorable but as a girlfriend would a pain to get along with but for perfectly good reasons (secretly I assumed that the work she does here is similar to what we're missing in the still painfully unreleased Prozac Nation) including her mother played by Stockard Channing (I can't believe she's never been in a Woody Allen film before). The main ensemble is set off my Danny DeVito the gatekeeper to Biggs freedom (oddly also not been through the Woodster mill either before).

It's a film of small ambitions. It plays out against a backdrop of very few sets and locations. A massive amount of the story takes place in Bigg's apartment and on the benches of Central Park. This has the effect of allowing the audience focus on the dialogue. Instead of following the usual route of giving kids hip references which both immediately date a film and clang about to anyone the same age as the characters, Allen instead drops mentions for the giants of literature, philosophy and music. If this is the environment these characters have grown up in and the culture they've been exposed to they're hardly going to start talking about Britney Spears (although do look out for a cameo by a contemporary music artist). Which is I suppose what makes it so involving. We're watching someone else's world and getting lost there. No one complains about Middle Earth, so why all the back biting about this version of Manhattan?

I'll make this short but sweet. You must like Woody Allen movies to like this film. It is not your ordinary comedy. Good thing for me I think Allen's humor is great. Biggs did a very awesome job in this film. While he talked he scared me as to how much he sounded like Woody Allen. I will want to one day own this film. It is a very good one by the great writer/director.

This expertly done film has the marketed trappings of a romantic comedy, but as usual the advertising is misleading. "Anything Else" is not a light romp or a gentle farce like some may expect. This is a dark and funny look at today's selfish, chaotic and often violent world. It's about the uncertainty of intention; it's about trusting one's instincts over the words and appearances of others, and it's about learning to survive on one's own. Woody Allen pulls no punches and follows things through to their inevitable end, even allowing his own supporting character to rage blindly and possibly wrongly against the all-encompassing hatred he sees everywhere he goes. Soaked in fecund greens, New York City stands in for the unknown, wild and indifferent jungle (with Central Park as its heart). So it is no coincidence that Woody drives a bright red Porsche that roars like an animal; and it is particularly apt that the car he demolishes out of rage and a sense of justice is green.

Yet the filmmaker allows this kind of paranoia to be suspect. He challenges the fruition of distrusting everyone--even though in many cases throughout the film, the bitterness, rejection and anger are warranted.

Many critics dismiss "Anything Else" as old jokes rehashed or even "unwatchable." I'm not sure what film they saw. I wanted to go back in the moment it ended. Yes, Woody revisits the themes of his previous films. He is an artist. Love and death, infidelity and sex are his motifs. Nobody throws out Hitchcock's later films because they were once again about the wrong man or some guy with a crazy mother. This is a cerebral, subversive movie. It has its one-liners and its rhythm of performance, complete with incredulous stuttering by Jason Biggs and a whiny Christina Ricci as an inscrutable actress. But the film is fresh and strong and--as typical of original art--completely underrated.

Woody Allen steps back from himself in ANYTHING ELSE and turns center stage over to a couple of young protagonists who are allowed to thrash around and make their own mistakes, with only a little kibitzing from the side by Woody. In the process, the film tackles all of the larger issues of life, love, ethics and the loneliness of man in the universe that Woody has grappled with, in varying degrees of clarity, in so many of his earlier films, but does it in a way that charms and tickles the audience and, ultimately, reassures them. While Woody's character has a dark, paranoid streak to him, the film is nowhere near as bitter and acidic (nor as profound) as DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (1997), the last film of Allen's to address these issues head-on.

Woody plays a sage/mentor to a young comedy writer who's trying to write a dark, existential novel. The writer, Jerry Falk (played by Jason Biggs of AMERICAN PIE fame), is saddled with a clinging manager (Danny DeVito), who keeps using inappropriate (but amusing) Garment Center metaphors, and is mired in a hopeless relationship with Amanda, a whirlwind of a young woman who sucks people into her life and then treats them badly. Played to perfection by Christina Ricci, Amanda is smart, seductive, and clearly exciting to be around, but is a bundle of deadly neuroses that will take a lifetime to untangle. We see her future self reflected in her narcissistic, childlike mother (Stockard Channing in a wonderful comic supporting performance), who comes to stay with the couple early in the film.

It's all about Jerry coming to grips with who he is, what he wants to do, and what it will take for him to get there. And it's Woody, playing a schoolteacher near retirement age who wants to tackle a comedy writing career late in life for himself, who serves as the catalyst for Jerry. Thus, the movie encapsulates, in, perhaps, an overly tidy fashion, the broad advice Woody wants to dispense to the younger members of his audience. While it's occasionally cartoonish and sometimes veers narrowly toward the heavy-handed, it also gives us a more confident and lively Woody, one who is freed from the self-imposed demands of being the romantic lead. Overall, it's a delightful, charming, funny and genuinely touching film which not only makes very good use of its young stars, but also of its writer-director-co-star-turned elder statesman.

Yes, I admit to being a Woody Allen fan. Yes, I agree that his movies are uneven and have not all been up to the great standards of Annie Hall or Hannah. So I saw this on video, since it slipped out of the theaters quickly. And having read the IMDB reviews, I was prepared for the worse. The good news is that Mr Allen has recovered from whatever it was that was interfering with his muse. The picture is a classic Woody Allen film: fine acting, wonderful lines and gags, an ongoing psychoanalytical situation, dysfunctional relationships, funny situations, and Woody himself in a suitable role as a crazy guy, but the only "sane" one in the film. I would also add that the scenes of New York, including Manhattan and Brooklyn, were breathtakingly beautiful.

Critics now seem to enjoy dissing Woody, whatever his output. Maybe that's the price of a long, fruitful career. Ignore them and enjoy his films. Long may he present his gifts to us.