Same paranoia and same humor feels a little too repetitious.
If this newest comedy feels like something you’ve seen before it’s because every single Woody-ism trademark is quilted into the picture stemming from the dialogue, the mannerisms, the themes, the jokes and of course the New York City front. Unfortunately, in keeping up with his film-a-year pace, writer/director/New Yorker Woody Allen manages to show little originality in this semi-romantic comedy that comes across like a stale piece of rye bread.
Insecurities and cynical intuitions are the make up of Jaon Biggs’ () character named Jerry Falk. While Allen gets to play the offbeat, park bench sidekick and offers the films funniest lines, the thicker role is delegated to Biggs, but he only manages to recreate the same typical jaded characterizations that Allen portrayed in his other films. Thankfully, Manhattan in Anything Else seems like a very tight place and romantic pursuits as in the delicious Ricci are in the air. Starring as the love interest and then the uninterested girlfriend, Ricci is bound to a role that asks for tight t-shirts and a rather boring one-dimensional persona which lacks the charm of a Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite or Samantha Morton in Allen’s last great film Sweet and Lowdown and is very distant from Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall. Despite having Jimmy Falloon (Almost Famous) and Stockard Channing (Le Divorce) and yes, even Danny DeVito (Death to Smoochy) in the film, their roles are limited and are purely insignificant to the rest of the picture.
Redundancy prevails in the narrative and what hurts the film the most is the pacing of the picture which is long and filled with uneventful moments. Meanwhile the comic timing doesn’t offer any opportune moments with the lead character to shine through. When Biggs talks directly to the viewer during his on-going collection of complaints it is almost a chore to listen to him and muster a laugh. Sure there are some giggles-the smashing the car with a wrench scene comes to mind, but getting past the chain-smoking and no love making issues of their relationship seems like the longest walk in the park. The toughest hurdle is that we never do have the chance to care about these unappealing characters, an even harder task made by scenes with long takes on dull moments.
The reason why I consider every new Woody Allen film release as a potiential miovie-going experience is because his previous films are usually better than the average films out there. However, these are trying times for the golden-aged filmmaker who has been able to keep up with a treasure chest full of memorable characters and films which always offer great intuitions about male and female relationships. This new baby is as boring as the one too many puns about the Germans and the Jews and Anything Else becomes a reminder that perhaps its time to dig out a rental of Allen’s previous better films.
