Manhattan

Let me get this out of the way: I'm a big Woody Allen fan. And this flick is absolutely and utterly his. From the black and white to the ambience and, of course, the dialog, it all screams Woody Allen as loud as it can. As most of his movies, Woody is not simply playing a character, nor simply being himself. It is a mix, a blend between a real man and a made up persona. And, as always, the line is weirdly blurry, making it so, at times, you're watching a documentary. The plot itself is not the central point of the story and, at times, it is hard to understand exactly what it is leading to. No, the focus of the story is the characters. Characters like Isaac, Yale and the city. Specially the city. It is an homage to a now distant past of history, viewed from the lens of a troubled mix of a real and fictional man. It is hard to defend most of Isaac's actions. And it is way harder to get mad at them. It is a movie about imperfection, ego, society, intellectuals and love. And it is great. A great movie to be rewatched as many times as you can.

Manhattan is a stunningly shot film. Beautiful scenes of the city permeate throughout and the music of George Gershwin punctuate the visuals nicely. You can really sense Allen's love for NYC and I admit, though not a New Yorker, I fell for the city too.

As for the plot, ok it's a film that couldn't be shot today as it deals with a 42 year old, twice divorced man, a father no less, who is dating a 17 year old high schooler. Getting past that, this is a story of a group of neurotic, self absorbed people who project so much authority and opinion about the lives and endeavors of others, but yet are unable to project much of anything other than dysfunction in their own lives.

There is a particularly painful scene when Issac, played by Allen, is breaking things off with Tracy, played by Mariel Hemingway. You really feel for the girl, she is young, inexperienced, has fallen in love with the older man and is now experiencing rejection and heartbreak for the first time. There is also a lot of humor in the film. What I especially enjoyed is the humor didn't sink to vulgarity or cheap talk about bodily functions or anatomy jokes. The subject was handled with maturity and wasn't insulting. Towards the end of the film Issac attempts to persuade Tracy not to go to London to study, but Tracy is a precocious young lady telling Issac that he must have faith in people insinuating she'll return to him. Just an overall good film about the complications of adult life told in a humorous yet mature manner. Enjoy.

From a technical standpoint, this film is top-notch - the acting is brilliant, the cinematography is beautiful, and the George Gershwin soundtrack is excellent.

But the content of the film is another thing. Basically, Woody Allen comes across as an egomaniacal creep who writes parts for himself in order to make him look like he's God's gift to women (there are so many references to his sexual prowess one could start a group drinking game based off it).

And anybody with even a beginner's understanding of adolescent psychological development knows that men who pursue teenage girls are sick and sadistic bastards who find joy in ruining promising young lives.

So my summary is: Like the film for its craft, but loathe the creator for his statement.

Woody Allen started off making outrageous, cheap, hit-and-miss, unpretentious comedies, the best of which were probably "Love and Death" and "Sleeper." The comedy became more rooted in reality and grafted onto an engaging story of lost love in "Annie Hall," which I think is still his best film. After that, "Interiors." Ka-Boom. Since then there have been no more absurd comedies, several gloomy dramas, and many more or less successful attempts to blend comedy with serious themes.

This is one of the dark comedies and didn't work for me. Allen is going with a high-school girl, falls for a woman nearer his own age, alienates his close friend, and finally decides -- too late -- that the younger girl is his soul mate. It ends ambiguously with her leaving for Europe. The plot is out of a soap opera. It does have some witty lines (almost all of them given to Allen himself) and a lot of inside New Yorker intellectual allusions, but, aside from the Gershwin score, isn't worth seeing twice. Really, it's pretty boring. The performances aren't bad, but Allen doesn't challenge himself either. It's his old neurotic, stuttering, put-upon persona that is by now more than familiar enough. There's just nothing new.

It isn't that Allen had run out of ideas by 1979 because he's made some successful films since then -- "Hollywood Ending" and "Broadway Danny Rose", for instance. But "Manhattan" is one of the many that simply got by me. It didn't seem charming. It seemed repetitious and pointless. I didn't bother counting the times someone meets another and says, "Hiii," using the contours of the fourth tone in Mandarin Chinese. And no one seems to say it just once during a given encounter, but several times. "Hii, hii -- how AHH you?"

I kept waiting for one of two things to happen. Either IT takes off or I get drawn in. But neither contingency was realized. I cared about the entanglements in "Annie Hall," but here it didn't matter to me who wound up with whom, and I never got the feeling that it mattered much to Allen either.

I watched Manhattan recently because i had never seen Woody Allen's films and heard this was one of his best.

I can see why people love this film, it certainly is quite original and a convincing snapshot of a group of friends in New York, but I found Woody's character just too excruciating self-possessed and irritating to enjoy the film overall.

I guess you either love him or hate him, but he reminded me of George Costanza on Seinfeld - i just wanted to shake him and say 'get over yourself!'.

As for the humor, there were a lot of attempted wit there but nothing that made me laugh out loud. I won't be a hurry to see any of his other films.