User reviews

Before the film came out, I read some reviews saying that they felt Woody was back in top form, but now I'm reading reviews that say otherwise. I guess many people feel that in the case of a greatly talented filmmaker like Woody, after wooing audiences with his earlier works like "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan," there's nowhere left to go but down. So whenever people bash his films, they don't bash them in the same way they would the next SNL-inspired dud. They bash them even more brutally simply because he's Woody and they can't help but expect more from him.

"Hollywood Ending" is no gem, with moments that obviously drag, but I felt it worked. It's an excellent premise for a farcical comedy, and it played out fluently. My only criticism about the "blind" element of the film dealt with Woody's performance. Each scene where he talks to someone, he purposely turns away from that person. He was obviously trying way too hard to stress the fact that his character's blind (I guess in case the audience somehow forgot halfway through). People who are blind actually have a strong sense of hearing. Like the comic book character of Daredevil, their other four senses are heightened. When they're first faced with the blindness, it's hard to cope, but after a short while they get used to it.

Like most of Woody's films, the cast is an ensemble of multi-talented actors who each contribute more than their own five cents into the work. There was even an funny unbilled cameo by Isaac Mizrahi. A lot of people project snobbery upon Woody's recent work, but I happened to enjoy this movie very much, and the same goes with "Small-Time Crooks" and "Curse of the Jade Scorpion." As long as you don't proceed with gigantic expectations, you should have a lot of fun.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

I admit to being a big Woody Allen fan; when I was in college, I went to a Woody Allen movie - Play it Again, Sam - and all around me, people were laughing like hyenas. I had no idea what was funny. Now I don't know how I ever thought that.

"Hollywood Ending" is a 2002 film from the prolific Allen, and he gives it to Hollywood but good. He plays a neurotic, hypochondriacal film director named Val who can't get arrested thanks to being so difficult. But in a conference about a film, The City that Never Sleeps, his ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni), in charge of development, is positive that he would be the best man for the job. She is shot down by everyone, including her current producer boyfriend Yeager (Treat Williams) but she manages to convince him to at least meet with Val.

Val loathes Yeager and he doesn't want to have anything to do with him or Ellie but he's just come home from a Canadian winter shoot for a deodorant commercial, from which he was fired, and he's desperate. His long-suffering agent Al (Mark Rydell) gets him the deal, and Val is hired.

The night before the shoot, Val calls Al, in the middle of a Seder, and demands he come over. He's blind. Al gets him to a doctor but there's nothing wrong with Val's eyes. He can't lose the job, so Al goes with him to the set, but is thrown out by Ed (George Hamilton). Al suggests that he find a confidant who can see him through the film. Since Val has demanded a Chinese cameraman who doesn't speak English, the translator needs to be around, so he helps Val out. But Val is going to need a lot more help than the translator.

I found the premise and the whole movie quite funny, with some great dialogue and good acting from everyone, including Debra Messing, who plays Val's current bimbo girlfriend, whom he casts in the film.

The movie would have been better if Allen had actually attempted to cover up the fact that Val is blind rather than acting just like a blind man. The fact that no one noticed is ridiculous. When someone speaks to him, he looks the opposite way, and he stares straight ahead, and he needs help walking.

All in all, I really enjoyed it. It's not his best; it's not his worst. Some very funny scenes and filled with wit.

Some of the one liners here are so hysterical, you will think about them long after the movie ends and still roar. This is a very funny movie and plays right into the audience expectation Allen is mocking in his script. After the war in Iraq, Woody's comment about "Thank God the French exist" is even more amusing than when he first wrote it. Yes Thank God for the French, they've made some funny movies too. And Thank God for people like Woody Allen. The world needs him. I love how his running trademark showing him with younger women still continues to upset certain members of both the public and critical elite. I think at his age, Allen can pretty much do and write what he wants. Personally, I enjoy the fantasy; it's a sly little dig against the morals of American culture, especially in the Ashcroft/Bush JR era. Older men and younger women have been around forever, and Woody definitely isnt the only one experiencing this condition, so get over yourselves, uptighters, and learn to laugh at life. The dumbing down of society (referred to often in the screenplay) is highly evident after the negative reactions this has received. It's only a movie; it's not the end of the world. You either get it or you don't.

I liked when Woody Allen went back to comedy and starred in his own films again during this period. He started showing his age in the 00's, but in this film he's still a lot of fun and capable of being a physical comic. It's a story about a real down on his luck has-been of a director (Allen) who's so desperate that he's reduced to filming commercials in Canada. So he has no choice but to accept an offer to direct a big movie that could put him back on top - the problem is, the two producers are his ex-wife (Tea Leoni) and her new fiancé who stole her from Allen (Treat Williams). Right before production all the stress gets to Woody and he experiences psychosomatic blindness and has to direct the whole movie without being able to see. He can't blow this important opportunity and has to fake his way through without letting anyone but his trustworthy agent and his Asian cameraman's interpreter know what's happening.

This is a sure-fire recipe for laughs, and it mostly delivers. Tea Leoni is perfect for the role of Woody's long-suffering ex who's stuck working with him again under such touchy circumstances. I also enjoy Mark Rydell as his dedicated agent and mentor. Debra Messing plays another in a long line of ditzy young girlfriends who can't seem to resist shacking up with the 66-year-old Allen. The one flaw is that the movie goes on a tad long, and maybe the gag wears thin by the home stretch. *** out of ****

The good Woody Allen comedies are packed with intelligent jokes and have characters you like and can relate to. This movie misses on both counts. There is very little that is funny in this movie unless you like Woody's exaggerated portrayal of a blind man and everyone else's unbelievable failure to notice that Woody is blind. The attempts at slapstick comedy based on the problems of a fumbling blind man are embarrassingly bad.

But the bigger problem is that Woody's character is so unlikeable. He plays a bad director that treats Tea Leoni badly. It is hard to understand how they could have ever been married or why she would ever consider going back to someone so stupid, untalented, and insensitive.

The final problem is that this movie drags on much too long. There is an incredible amount of pointless dialog that is uninteresting and does not advance the plot.

The only part of the movie that works for me is the scene with Woody's estranged son, "Scumbag X". Scumbag is an interesting original character whose intelligence is in stark contrast to all the idiots that populate the rest of the movie. That scene had my favorite Allen line: "I love you, Scumbag".

While watching 'Hollywood Ending', I re-confirmed the fact that there is, there was and there will be only one Woody Allen. The Legendary Film Personality seems to be having a blast in this Funny Flick about a Has-Been Filmmaker who decides to direct a film for his ex, but a psychosomatic ailment strikes him blind just before production is set to begin.!

'Hollywood Ending' is meant for all, it's funny and way to Filmy. Allen is like never-before! He's astounding after he turns blind, he captures the show and like how! I am in awe of him. He can Write, Direct and Act, with such style, such ease and such understanding! He's one of those talents that remain as Legends till you watch Cinema!

Watch 'Hollywood Ending' for Woody Allen, he sinks his teeth into the departments he puts himself into. Reccmended to all!

Val Waxman (Woody Allen) is a temperamental filmmaker, who has not directed a film for ten years. Although being and excellent director, the studios do not hire him, since he is also a troublemaker. His former wife Ellie (Téa Leoni) is dating Hal Jaeger (Treat Williams), a powerful executive of Galaxie, and she convinces him to invite Val for a US$ 60 millions project about New York. Val presently lives with Lori Fox (Debra Messing), but is still in love with Ellie, and becomes jealous with the situation. However, he knows that this work is his last chance in Hollywood and he accepts the challenge. On the first day of shooting, he develops a kind of psychosomatic blindness, and gets in serious troubles. This predictable and naive romantic comedy is based on one-joke only. I am a huge fan of Woody Allen, but I found this work below his average. Anyway it is a good entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Dirigindo no Escuro' (`Directing in the Dark', but also `Driving in the Dark'- `dirigindo' has double meaning in Portuguese)

I am overwhelmed with the modern movies' aspiration to rely on new fashions. Thank God we have Woody Allen as a beacon of tradition and craftsmanship in the domain of movie-making. The movie is extremely funny and lacks all the nuisances which plague newer ones in order to make them more appealing to the main core audience nowadays: male teenagers. Woody Allen plays the role of an over-the-hill director which undertakes the mission of making a movie against the wishes of its producer.He receives a blow when he becomes blind right before the beginning of the shooting. The plot revolves around Allen's blindness, which is guarded as a secret by his agent, and the process of the filming with a blind director. I do not have to mention the many a hilarious moments this situation produces.

This is easily Woody's funniest since 'Bullets over Broadway' (1994), and his warmest film since then, as well. It's also his best film since at least 'Sweet and Lowdown' (1999), with excellent performances from Woody (who's frankly been coasting in many of his recent films) as well as Tea Leoni and Mark Rydell as his agent Al. It could have done with some more biting stuff about Hollywood, and it runs too long by about 20 minutes, but it's a lot of fun and well worth seeing. I'm looking forward now to 'Anything Else', which I still haven't seen. Hopefully, this signals an upturn in the quality of Woody's films. I was getting very nervous there for a while with crap like 'Small Time Crooks' and 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion'.

Allen is a director, and here he plays one as well, who becomes psycho-psematically blind right before he starts shooting his latest picture for 60 million dollars. And so, his agent tags along to make sure he stays on the picture in one piece. The one liners here are classic Allen as there is not one scene that doesn't have them and while they don't all work, when they do it's laugh out loud. The film is also a good dish for movie buffs. The ending itself, by the way, is absolutely appropriate. Favorite lines- the black plague (he calls this as a disease in an early restaurant scene), call Dr. Kevorkian (after the first screening of the movie), and- you should put a full page ad in the DGA cause you'll never stop working (after Thiessen shows Allen her assets). A-

I really don't understand why your users rated this movie as a mediocre one (when I write this, it has 6.3 points). This is a superb irony on the irrational fashion that runs through the Western Elite (European and American). It's a game between rational and irrational, under the pretext of a blind director who initially wants to make a nonconformist movie and he ends by making it "per accidens". "Thanks God the French exist!" says Woody Allen at a certain moment. Well, we should really thank God for that. The French have style. The French have art (or used to have). What came under my eyes very rapidly was that, although Woody Allen movie is surprisingly commercial, very easy to understand from a superficial perspective, it is a movie about postmodernism, about how art is made. Tristan Tzara, my compatriot and the initiator of the Suprarealist movement called DADAISM would have been very enthusiastic over the movie in the movie (which, a propos, is never shown to us!!!). You should watch this movie with your eyes and ears and with your mind open, because you'll see something else.

As said before, Woody Allen is a very acquired taste. To me he has made a lot of great films, a handful of masterpieces and while there have been some disappointments, while there are films of his yet to see, none of them have been terrible. Hollywood Ending has often been considered lesser Allen, and while it is not a masterpiece in any shape or form(like Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdeameanours, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives and Purple Rose of Cairo, Zelig is also very close to being one) and does fall short of great it is not among the bottom(so far What's Up Tiger Lily, To Rome with Love, Celebrity, Anything Else and Cassandra's Dream, although all of them had a fair share of redeeming qualities). Hollywood Ending is imperfect, the blindness joke has been much criticised and I have to agree, it is a joke so stretched out it becomes very tiring, the pacing as a result in the last act lost momentum and credibility went out the window. Much more could have been done with the subplot and relationship of Allen's character and his son, it was pretty much in the background and like a secondary subplot and it was a subplot that if more prominent could have given the film more heart and it would have made their relationship more interesting, in the end it felt under-baked. On the other hand, Hollywood Ending as always with Allen is very well-directed and looks fabulous with cinematography that is colourful and dreamlike. Hollywood Ending aside from the blindness joke is a very entertaining film, the one-liners are just delicious, Val has the best lines and they are just hilarious, and the gags are very characteristic of Allen and are well-engineered. As ever with Woody Allen, the film also has a lot to say about various subjects and explores them in an insightful and sometimes self-mocking way(that is sometimes and understandably considered self-indulgence). The story up till the last act has relationships and issues that we can identify with strongly, is well-paced and there is plenty of compelling story-telling. Hollywood Ending is expertly played with the best performance coming from Tea Leoni, who is immensely charming with very easy comic timing, closely followed by Woody Allen himself, who makes the most of his lines and delivers them in a way that makes them even funnier. Treat Williams is always a joy and Debra Messing looks as though she's enjoying herself. Admittedly some of the cast should have had more to work with, such as George Hamilton, but they are no less impressive. On the whole, Hollywood Ending has its flaws and Allen has done better work but it is an entertaining film in a lot of ways. 7/10 Bethany Cox

For Woody Allen fans - this is one of the last ones with him acting so it is worth a watch. Unfortunately it's one of his weaker pictures. There are some laugh out loud moments esp his scene with Tea Leoni in the bar. The hypochondria isn't that funny. The main premise is interesting psychosomatic blindness but wears thin after a while. The supporting cast is not well utilized. Everyone is made to talk in that Woody Allen way. Tiffany Thiessen has such a small part. George Hamilton just a few lines. The Chinese cameraman and interpreter are quite funny at first. But overall it still is worth a watch for the pleasant neat storyline and the laughs in between. Just isn't that funny after all.

Following a string of flops and a "difficult" reputation, director Val Waxman is now paying the bills doing adverts or anything else he can get. When his ex-wife gets her project greenlit by producer boyfriend Hal Jaeger, she fights for Val to get the job. Despite the personal issues and conflicts Val knows it is his last chance to get his career back and takes the job. The personal problems are only the start of things going wrong whenever Val is suddenly struck down with psychosomatic blindness. Knowing that this would get him fired and ruined, Val and his agent try to conceal the fact and continue the film.

With poor reviews and no good signs about it, it was no surprise that this film never came to any cinemas near me (was it even released in the UK?) and to be honest I wasn't that bothered that I missed it. A visit to Austria recently found it playing in cinema in Vienna and, although I didn't see it then, it put it in my mind to watch it at home and see if it was worth the ongoing cinema screenings that the Austrians were giving it. The start of the film suggests a fairly good film as it is full of the usual Allen wit even if it felt a bit like him on autopilot. However with the "blindness" section things seem to falter and fail a bit – at first it is funny but quickly it gets tired and there is nothing injected into the film to shore it up. The reason for the blindness is suggested as interesting but it is barely done and not taken anywhere other than the most basic development in order to provide a conclusion. The idea is good and the real life parallels are interesting (Allen, handicapped by the American system but still appreciated in Europe even if he doesn't totally understand why) but these are not taken beyond the original concept and never brought out in the script. Instead we have plenty of OK jokes and quips but nothing that approaches an engaging narrative or a developed plot. It is still OK but it is unlikely that any audiences other than real Allen fans will get much fro it; as one I laughed and enjoyed it a bit but am not blind to the massive weaknesses.

Allen does his usual stuff to good effect and if you like him you'll like him here. Leoni acts in his shadow and can't make the role her own – she stays very much an Allen creation. Williams is enjoyable; Hamilton is fun and the support cast all do well enough with their various parts. None of them really shine but the script still shares the laughs around and nobody actually gave a bad performance as such – just a shame that none of them have a character to speak of either.

Overall this is an OK film but nothing more than that. Even fans of Woody Allen will be at a stretch to forgive a script that has no development, characters or reason. The laughs come in fits and starts and the film rarely satisfies; fun but nothing to write home about and I'm glad I didn't spent my limited time in Austria watching this.

There's one really good gag in Woody Allen's "Hollywood Ending" and luckily it lasts for about three-quarters of the movie. In his most self-referential film since "Stardust Memories" Woody plays a film director who, in the course of making his comeback film, (for the producer who stole his ex-wife), goes psychosomatically blind and the gag is he must hide his blindness from everyone but the very few. What follows is what could best be described as 'one of the early funny ones', a farce with not too much analysis. Until he goes blind the movie isn't particularly funny and is more than a little self-indulgent; these are jokes we've heard a hundred times before. Consequently, "Hollywood Ending" isn't one of his better pictures and would probably make a better short story but there's a sweetness to it and Tea Leoni, (the ex-wife), and Debra Messing, (the dumb actress girlfriend), are both very likeable though when you get down to it, it's director Mark Rydell as Allen's perpetually optimistic Jewish agent who walks away with the movie.

Woody Allen is even MORE neurotic and hilarious in Hollywood Ending because his character is blind. He's smashing glasses, knocking over tables, and stumbling through this movie. It's ridiculous and fun.

Funny, it shows the character of Woody Allen. His spicological blindness obliges him to direct a film without seeing, the most beautiful phrase of the film is "bring me a cyanide flask!"

Hollywood Ending[First-Viewing, TV](Woody Allen)- Woody Allen, Tea Leoni, Mark Webber, George Hamilton, Treat Williams

Woody Allen directs, writes and stars in this semi-comedy, semi drama film about a Hollywood director (Allen) who is directing a film, and meanwhile suddenly goes blind. Meanwhile he has to work with his ex-wife(Leoni) who is now dating the owner (Williams) of the studio producing the film. The film has its typical Woody Allen jokes, and delivers in its comedy portions, very funny at times. The plot is also very interesting, especially how Woody goes blind. The film has some very good points that even make much more sense now with what Bush is doing in the world (Woody says `Thank god for the french'). Teo Leoni gives a good performance, and Woody is his charming self, Woody fans will him in this one. Mark Webber also gives an interesting performance as Woody's son. Overall a fresh screenplay from Woody, with decent direction and good performances. 9/10

Over the years, I've probably disliked almost as many Woody Allen movies as I've liked, but when I disliked one of his movies I still felt it was a generally well-made film that just went in a direction I didn't like. The shocking thing about Hollywood Ending is, it's badly made. Nothing is done with the film's reasonably clever potential and scenes that should have been funny simply fall apart. The dialogue is clunky and the film appears to be made by someone who has no concept of the basic mechanics of film comedy. There are some good lines scattered here and there but the movie is a truly toothless satire. There is no chemistry at all between Woody and Tea, who is wasted and reveals none of the comic talent she has shown elsewhere, and it seems painfully clear that Woody was not the right mate for her or anyone. Somehow Debra Messing manages to make more out of her little part than anyone else in the movie (except, perhaps, George Hamilton, who only gets about four lines but gets the most out of all four).

There are other Allen films I've actually found less enjoyable to watch than Hollywood Ending, but none I've found as badly made. I haven't seen the last couple of Allen films so I don't know if this marks the beginning of the end or if he was just having a bad year, but this is a truly bad movie.

Woody Allen is a comic genius who plays himself in this film as Val Waxman. I don't believe his on screen relationship with Debra Messing or with Tea Leoni but that's Woody Allen for you. This film has him playing a down and out New York City film director who gets to make a film in the city with a Chinese cinematographer who can't speak English. Just days before filming commences, his character comes down with blindness. He can't let the cast, crew, and backers know he's really blind. But still, I do enjoy a good Woody Allen comedy. It's light-hearted at times in this film. If you don't get Woody Allen, I'm sorry that you probably wouldn't like the film. Anyway, I think it's time he got his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television; the Cecil B. DeMille Award; the National Medal of the Arts; and the Kennedy Center Honors. It's just time for him to get his rewards.

I expect an intelligent and funny film whenever I choose something directed by Woody Allen, but this time I was unpleasantly surprised. The film lacks the originality of most of his previous scripts and I was hardly ever amused by the dialogue (My favorite lines being, "I quit." "Why?" "I was fired!"). The acting was o.k. but Mr. Allen's habit of surrounding himself with women so younger to him this time looked rather distasteful than anything else. The film would have been great if it was much shorter than hour and a half.