because you can't have too much entertainment... September 2003

Anything Else
Written & Directed by Woody Allen. Starring: Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito, and Woody Allen

Maybe you've read about me? I am one of the faithful who are always mentioned in articles about Woody Allen's core fan base. We live in France and New York. We go to everything he makes -no matter how awful the films become. Lately you may have also heard that our numbers are dwindling. These things are all true. The bleeding of Woody's fanbase started sometime in the 90s and by this current decade, with the likes of the unfunny Hollywood Ending and the excruciating Curse of the Jade Scorpion, the hemorrhaging was in full force.

Thankfully, Anything Else offers the loyal who've been sticking around a much needed transfusion. Despite the public hurrahs greeting Woody's absence from the central romantic relationship of the film, it's actually his participation (rather than absence) in a different role that gives the film its new blood supply. As Dobel, a possibly insane but amiable mentor figure for the protagonist Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs), Woody Allen gives his best performance in a decade. It's also the most original character he's written for himself in even longer. Dobel's unstable position as both the reliable mentor friend and the unreliable citizen (paranoid and violent) is an intriguing new element thrown into the comfortable Woody Allen stew of the romantic comedy. Dobel makes this entry into Allen's oeuvre a step up.

Though Anything Else returns Woody Allen to the genre where he's realized his greatest successes, this is not to say that all of our hopes were realized and the faithful fan base were given another Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters. The new film lacks the clarity of many of his best films. Allen has always meandered in his narratives but the meanderings used to wind back in in crucial ways and here they just feel like wanderings. Things begin that never really go anywhere or contribute in any meaningful way. Jerry Falk begins the story in voice-over and occasionally addresses the camera but I was lost as to any purpose for the breaking of the fourth wall. It annoys rather than illuminates. Similarly there's what seems to be a split screen joke about halfway in...but it doesn't have a punchline. There's even an entire character that seems pointless. Stockard Channing is a hoot as Amanda's loud lost mother, Paula. But she doesn't seem to serve any purpose in the narrative. Unfortunately, because of that, she only highlights the claims of misogyny that plague Woody's filmography. In essence, Jerry is saddled with not one nightmare girlfriend but two; Amanda and the nightmare that spawned her.

If Anything Else is far from perfect, it's also so much more vital than Allen's last few films that it's easy to forgive it its problems and to feel that the once celebrated now dismissed filmmaker may still have a great picture in him somewhere. The great hope is the humor. It's genuinely funny. From Amanda's loudly articulated neurosis (Ricci is clearly having a ball with her abundant dialogue) to Jerry's embarrassing flirting to Dobel's often shocking levels of paranoia there's more laugh-out-loud funny moments here than we've seen in a good long while in a Woody Allen picture. Anything Else is not particularly romantic but it is thankfully funnier than most of what the genre offers these days.

So, wounded though Woody and his bloody fanbase may be, laughter may indeed be the best medicine. It can distract you from the pain. If there were any justice in the cinematic world Anything Else would abruptly serve as lifesaving tourniquet. It's no cure but it'll stop the bleeding. We, the fans, will see you again next year when his next movie arrives. B-

 

-Nathaniel

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