Melinda and Melinda

It's curious how after having been apart for a good many years, Mia Farrow and Woody Allen seem to surface in this movie, playing the central roles. In casting Rhada Mitchell and Will Farrell, the director gives the Mia character to the young Australian actress who has an uncanny resemblance to the young Ms. Farrow, and his alter ego is played by Mr. Ferrell. The best thing Mr. Allen did in this film was to cast someone else to play the role he always gives to himself.

The idea of "Melinda and Melinda" is not bad. However, the situations, even if they are theatrical, at heart, feel fake. The resolutions of the issues in both aspects of the drama, or the comedy, being discussed by some local intellectuals at Pastis, the restaurant, don't produce a logical conclusion. In fact, both stories playing at the same time, have a way of disorienting the viewer.

The casting doesn't help either. Rhada Mitchell, is out of her league playing Melinda. Will Ferrell as Woody Allen, please! The talented Chloe Sevigny and Chiwetel Ejiofor do what they can, but we just don't believe for a moment about their situation, nor do we care what happens to these bunch of pretentious Manhanittes that are one dimensional at best.

This film probably marks the crucial point where Woody Allen takes one step back and lets others take over the Woody persona of a typical Allen film. It's happened before, in Celebrity and Anything Else, but now the lead characters can breathe as themselves without having to essentially 'be Woody'. Sure the resemblances are still there but more in the situations than in the characters. Will Ferrell displays proper comic timing and Jonny Lee Miller tries valiantly with what he's given. The script sparkles with more one-liners than most recent efforts and an appropriate return of the 'lust for life' motif seen in earlier films such as Hannah and Her Sisters or Everyone Says I Love You. If you don't appreciate that comic situations are both sad and full of life, and that tragedy has a fair share of unexpected delights as well as heartache, than you're definitely missing the point. Woody displays both of these in equal quantity spread liberally throughout the film in all situations. And so what if the end plays more like a series of sketches than a full-on film? It's the mark of a master than can make us enjoy what we see regardless of narrative form. 8 out of 10.

I thought that this film is right out of the classic Woody Allen mode. His theme of having events determined by others -- in this case, the writers -- was reminiscent of his one-act plays, "God" and "Death," and follows the tracks of the worldview he has always explored in his films. It was very well-written and crafted, an enjoyable night at the flicks.

One thing that struck me is that the character played by Will Ferrell is exactly the part that Woody can no longer play because he's too old. It was not long into the film before I discerned that these are lines that Woody had written for himself, the character he'd always played, but a younger man was delivering them for him. And that only added to the charm of the film for me.

Of course we communicate. Now can we not talk about it anymore? I wanted to start with that because it is the only funny line in the film. If you don't believe me, click on the Memoralble Quotes option at the side of this page. Also, now you have heard the only funny line you do not need to see the film.

If you do see the film, you will find that it is a strange combination of Woody Allen's previous work. It contains two sets of lookalike actors in parallel story lines, just like Deconstructing Harry. It has a framing device of a philosophical discussion in a bar, just like Bullets over Broadway. The subject matter is the relentless marital infidelity, affairs, divorces and re-couplings that are familiar from Manhatten. The Wallace Shawm character sums up the film by saying "…comic or tragic, the most important thing is to enjoy life while you can because we only go round once and when its over, its over,,, and it could end like that" with a snap of his fingers. Well I suppose that is a reasonable summing up of Allen's view of life and, to be fair, many of us would agree with him in this post-God, age of the individual. The line about only going round once is a bit difficult to take though since Allen has clearly been round this particular block quite a few times.

The conceit of this film is that the same story can be told as either a tragedy or a comedy, paraphrasing Marx's remark that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." We see Melinda, played by Radha Mitchell, as the only common character in two similar stories. I hesitate to call the stories tragic and comic because the truth is that they are rather similar, not very tragical and not very funny. I got confused with the lookalike characters until I realised that whenever Melinda had her hair in a mess we were watching the tragedy, when it was tidy we were watching the comedy. That's about the extent of the tragedy, she was having a bad hair day.

This presentation is original and clever; very nicely twisted from the Rashamon perceptions of several disparate pasts. As usual, Woody is very perceptive and a master of dialog, especially in fracturing relationships.

I noted that the "comedy" writer was heavily focused on the tragic elements of his plot line, while the "tragedy" writer saw little humor in his plot line. Actually, the 2 writers did not seem to differ very much at all in their views. It does not appear that Woody finds life very humorous. Rather, he finds humorous elements in mundane and sad events.

More obviously, most of the characters sound just like Woody. The comedy writer might as well have been Woody and Will Ferrell is a Woody stand-in. Several of the others, including the women, had numerous "Woody" moments. It seems like the actors and even the screen are interfering with Woody's attempts to present his art. Unlike other directors who expect the actors to climb into the characters, Woody seems to ask the actors to stand still while he paints them as the characters. Would he prefer to simple do a monologue?