Cenas em um Shopping

Director Paul Mazursky is always at his best when satirizing trendy Southern California lifestyles, and he does so here from that most quintessential Southern California setting: the shopping mall, where Bette Midler and Woody Allen break up and reconcile over the afternoon of their 16th wedding anniversary. The windy script was obviously written with Allen in mind, but the New York comedian is just as clearly out of his element playing a nouveau-riche, pony-tailed attorney with a taste for sushi and frozen yogurt. The sheer novelty value of such unlikely miscasting is irresistible, especially with the typically neurotic Allen paired (for once) against a co-star as extroverted as Midler, more or less reprising her role from Mazursky's 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' (1986). But the film never rises to the laugh-riot level expected from the talent involved: it's a claustrophobic, one-act, two-character comedy, no less thin and shallow than the LA culture it mocks, and often pointless except as a vehicle for its two bankable stars. Imagine the film with two unknown actors in the same roles, and it all but disappears off the screen.

Like many viewers, I was underwhelmed by this film in 1991. Thirty-one years later, I'm pleasantly surprised how good it is. Maybe age has something to do with it, both mine and the film's. Bette Midler and Woody Allen turn in great performances. Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the bright, quick-witted repartee.

Like a stale marriage, after about half an hour you might feel like retaking your vows with this one, because although it starts well enough, the fire soon dies down. The two leads are great, sparking off each other and generally giving all they've got to these two-dimensional characters. But there's only so many one-liners you can take before you realise that there isn't actually anything happening. It's an interesting idea, and worth a look, but with the credentials of those involved you'd expect to get more for your money.

He lives in Southern California. He spends time in a mall. He carries a surfboard. He wears a ponytail. Is this really Woody Allen, or an imposter? This movie received a critical beating when it came out, but it's really not that bad. In fact, I sort of got a kick out of seeing Woody in this. He is well matched by Bette Midler, who reprises her Down and Out in Beverly Hills character. Director Paul Mazursky, who usually makes either Southern California or Manhattan-set social comedies, brings Woody out to the Beverly Hills that he's trashed in so many movies (the most obvious being Annie Hall), and plucks him into the center of '80s and '90s California consumerism--the mall. The story involves Allen and Midler discussing their infidelities in various mall settings, but the dialogue is merely a clothesline for the idea. It was a hard idea to pull off, but I, being the Woody Allen fan that I am, enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this a lot, but more in the way you enjoy a play than a film. I can see how this would annoy some people, but I quite like it when film mimics theatre- for instance, by restricting virtually all the dialogue to two characters, and virtually all the action to one, claustrophobic, location. The plot is slow and unlikely, but the writing is good, and the acting superb. Particularly fine is Midler's murderous side-long glance at the word 'zombies'. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen Allen have better chemistry with his leading lady. So, not a film for laughing out loud at, but engrossing, well done, and fun to watch. Best thing about it: A mime gets punched. Worst thing: Woody Allen in a white jacket and- God help us- a pony-tail.