Manhattan

Manhattan is an exhilarating American romance set against the backdrop of New York of the late 70's: my favorite New York, the New York of painters, poets, punks, and Pauline Kael. Three great, very American talents -- Woody Allen, Gordon Willis, and George Gershwin -- intertwine their respective gifts to create a comedy that manages to satisfy both the brain and the heart, and even, perhaps, the lower regions.

Allen is so brainy and such a nebbish that he can get away with gestures that would be painfully sentimental in the hands of any other director: when he begins the movie with fireworks cut to Gershwin, it isn't to soften you up for a soap opera, but to remind you that however much his neuroses may seem to drive the scenes, its the love of New York that drives the movie.

The entire cast is note perfect: Meryl Streep as his caustic bisexual ex-wife, Diane Keaton as a nervous journalist from Philadelphia, and especially Mariel Hemingway, whose performance as Allen's 17-year old girlfriend is charming, heartbreaking, and wise.

Allen's comedy here is at its absolute finest. The fact that it is interwoven with a genuinely moving love story told with a subtlety and indirection that is unheard of in today's mainstream cinema only makes the laughs that much richer.

Gordon Willis' cinematography is good enough for the Museum of Modern Art. Scene after scene leaves a grin on your face as his moving (in both senses) black and white photography floats across the screen.

And finally underlying everything is the music of George Gershwin, whose exubertant melodies propel the movie forward at every turn.

This is Woody Allen's best movie, a great movie, and an American movie in the best sense. As an homage to the city of New York it will surely remain unsurpassed.

Woody Allen once said that, whereas Scorsese had generated a host of imitators, he had generated none. This may be true; films like Manhattan certainly come along far too infrequently.

That this is such a gorgeous film may strike those following the formulaic, Hollywood approach to cinema as strange and heretical. The story is unexciting (restless male in love triangle), most of the characters are unsympathetic, at least on the surface (particularly Isaac), Allen leaves lose ends lying around all over the place, and there's certainly no action (unless you count the car-chase-without-a-chase-scene involving Diane Keaton, Woody Allen and a VW Beetle).

So why should any self-respecting member of the MTV generation spend time on this film? Well, here are a few reasons.

The script is wit of the highest order. This is not gag-a-minute humour like Friends, but an altogether more acute art form stemming from character, some wonderful dialogue and a fair amount of darkness (I love the bit about Isaac trying to run over his ex-wife's lover). Allen is also prepared to turn his biting satire to personal issues, such as being Jewish. Just don't expect someone to look shrug their shoulders, slap their forehead and with mid-rising intonation say d'uh! It's not that kind of comedy.

Then there is the gorgeous cinematography. Woody loves Manhattan and you can certainly tell. If there is one criticism of the film, it is that it leaves a rather picture postcard impression of the city, but I suppose if it's love, then it's love. Much of the film appears to have been shot at either sunrise or sunset to soften the light, and there are spectacular views of the towers, bridges and waterways of America's finest metropolis.

Then, I suppose, there is the fact that Manhattan is probably the archetypal Woody Allen film. Other films may be better, like Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters but, in Manhattan, all the elements of Allen's style are in perfect balance. There's the jazz, the neurotic, unsympathetic lead, the choice between stable and highly-strung women, the self-mocking humour (hilariously done in the opening voice-over), the railing against intellectual snobbery, the deep unease with popular culture.

And there are great performances. Allen is at his most difficult – and in some ways his least likable. As Isaac, he's trying to do the right thing, but is rarely selfless enough to follow through with it. Diane Keaton is great as Mary, the lynchpin between the two love triangles – vain, pretentious and yet you can see why Isaac falls for her. Well, all the actors are great, and very believable, but special mention must go to Meryl Streep, who manages to steal the show with her tiny cameo as Isaac's ex-wife, writing a book about their break-up and living with their son and her lover. She is magnificent.

Of course, the film will also do nothing to dispel the popular rumour that New Yorkers are neurotic, self-obsessed and self-indulgent – at least that narrow social circle Allen so often writes about. If you don't mind that, though (and I'm English, so what do I care) you're in for a treat. As with the city itself, the memories of this film will stay with you forever.

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.

I used to hold this film as somewhat of a sacred cow when I first saw it in 1979. I was a proscribed Woody fan and

although I still like a few of his movies, this is no longer one of them, on recent review.

I recently purchased copies of Manhattan and Annie Hall.

I watched the latter first and it charmed my socks off again. One classic scene after another signals the height of Allen's art in this hilarious masterwork. Manhattan is a different story.

Perhaps my recent viewing of Wild Man Blues has hipped

me to what an whining, pampered egomaniac Mr. Allen is.

Perhaps it's the irony of his Chaplin-like dalliances with young women that have set me against him. But I now watch Manhattan

and see a pathetic, overblown Allen literally feeding lines to his

fellow actors to give him some smarmy comeback that never fails to show how intellectually superior he is. Different from Annie Hall, Allen is no longer the underdog but an ugly, obnoxious

over-lord...

His characters in Manhattan, are cardboard. They are not real and

the situations are not real. I have no feeling for anyone in this

movie, except Woody, who I feel contempt for, given his massive

and unfunny self-indulgence. It's pathetic to see Allen set up

Hemingway with lines that a teenager would never say in a million

years, just to trump up his flaccid ego. Everyone in this movie actually feeds him lines to trump up his ego.

Like Stardust Memories, this one shows Woody at his self- indulgent worst. This movie looks wonderful and sounds wonderful with the Gershwin score, but on further review, this

one's hollow and ultimately a maddening tribute to an egomaniac.

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.