Match Point review

 Number 568 on the top 1000 films of all time us Woody Allen's psychological thriller 'Match Point.'

Spoilers ahead

Christ Wilton (Jonathan Rhy Meyers) is an Irish former professional tennis player who marries into an upper-class English family. However, he risks everything when he starts an affair with his brother-in-law's American girlfriend Nola (Scarlett Johansson.)

Let's start with the Jonathan Rhys Meyers-shaped elephant in the room. Chris Wilton is Irish. It's a big part of his character. It's his nickname at one point. Meyers is Irish. Why does Meyers play the character with an English accent? It made no sense.

Anyway...I have seen a few Woody Allen comedies in my time and I have never been a fan. Judging from Match Point, I'm not a fan of his dramas either. He originally conceived this with an American cast and setting, but after failing to get funding, he reimagined it for an British setting and cast. The only exception was Scarlett Johansson who was a last-minute replacement for Kate Winslet.

Match Point divided critics with the Yanks loving it and Brits hating it. Guess what side I fall down on? It doesn't surprise me that American audiences loved this film; it has everything they know and love about British cinema, or think they know and love: good-looking men like Matthew Goode and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, posh English accents, afternoon tea, London landmarks, black taxis and upper-class people doing upper-class things like clay-pigeon shooting. it was like Allen had a list of criteria he needed to hit, I was half-expecting to see Dick Van Dyke singing about cleaning chimneys.

Allen's script was not good. The dialogue was clunky and unnatural with the English characters speaking in American English - Wilson says he was buying a sweater when any other English person would have been buying a jumper. Never mind a silver spoon, it was like the characters were walking around with dictionaries in their mouth. Plus, the plot was rushed. Chris and Nola have an instant-love connection with no catalyst prompting their illicit affair. neither of their parents didn't do anything to deserve being cheated on, not that anybody ever does, but it did make their relationship even more shallow.

Yet this wasn't all down to Allen. Granted the cast wasn't working with the best of scripts, but their performances were not good. Meyers was creepy, Johansson was whiny and annoying - the two of them had no on-screen chemistry at all, and Emily Mortimer, who played Chris' wife Chloe, had all the charisma of a ham sandwich. I understand that she was supposed to be boring, or, at least, too boring to interest Chris, but we saw little evidence of this, before he starts sleeping with Nola.

At two hours and five minutes, this was Allen's longest film, but it could be have been fifteen minutes shorter. The film culminates in the most half-arsed police investigation ever. After Nola falls victim to the surprise pregnancy cliche, Chris is caught in a dilemma to leave Chloe for her or to keep living his double-life. He does neither. He concocts a hair-brained scheme to shoot Nola's neighbour and then her and then stages the scene to look like a drug-fuelled burglary. 

Despite the flaws in his plan, despite how the ghostly apparitions of Nola and her neighbour appearing (the less said about this the better) appear to Chris taunting him about being caught, despite how Chris carelessly drops a piece of incriminating evidence on the script, despite how the police call him in for questioning, despite how everything paints toward him getting caught, he gets away with the crime scot-free.

One of the policemen solves the crime in his dream and is sure that Chris is lying, but is easily persuaded otherwise by his colleague. It's all just ridiculous. it was like Allen was worried he didn't have enough conflict for the final act, so he shoe-horned in this silly police investigation, which he knew wouldn't go anywhere.

Match Point was like every American's wet dream about British culture. But as is often the case, the dream is nothing like the reality. Tennis is a key theme of the film, but Allen served up a complete dud. A while ago, I wrote an article about films that should not be on the top 1000 films of all time. If I were to write another list, Match Point would surely be at the top.

Manhattan review

 Number 293 on the top 1000 films of all time is Woody Allen's romantic, comedy-drama 'Manhattan.'

Woody Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a 42-year-old TV comedy writer living in Manhattan. He is dating the 17-year-old Tracy (Muriel Hemingway) but soon falls in love with his best friend's mistress Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton.)

This was a comedy, right? Woody Allen directed it, right? He wrote it too. So, why was it so unfunny? The film was only ninety-six minutes, but it felt so much longer. It wasn't until the forty-sixth minute that I even cracked a smile. The rest of the film rarely elicited more than a chuckle.

And that comes back to Woody Allen who effectively always plays the same character - a neurotic, middle-aged Jewish man with a tendency to psycho-analyse everything. it's all well and good, once or twice, but after a while, it becomes tedious. Tedious is the best way to describe this film. It was just a bunch of would-be academics name-dropping philosopher after philosopher.

Manhattan was also uncomfortable in its depiction of Isaac and Tracy's relationship. He's old enough to be her father. And the romantically inexperienced Hemingway also experienced a lot of discomfort in the role. Considering the allegations that have since been levelled against Allen and considering how he is married to his step-daughter who is over thirty years his junior, it only made things ickier. I know that nothing ever came of the allegations, but it still felt creepy.

If I were to praise the film on anything it would be its cinematography, which was wonderful. Allen shot the film in black-and-white, which gave it a timeless, vintage feel. The scenes of Allen and Keaton in the planetarium where they were silhouetted against the stars were gorgeous.

I've seen a few Woody Allen films in my time. I can't say I like them very much. Even though, they're comedies, they're just not funny.

Deconstructing Harry review

 Number 896 on the top 1000 films of all time is Woody Allen's 1997 black comedy 'Deconstructing Harry.'

Harry Block (Woody Allen) is a neurotic academic and writer driving to his alma matter to receive an honourary degree. En route, he imagines himself interacting with many characters from his work, as well as flash blacking to the most important parts of his life. Tobey Maguire, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Jennifer Garner, among many others, all co-star.

Reportedly, Woody Allen was highly influenced by the work of Ingmar Bergman, in particular Wild Strawberries. Wild Strawberries is about an old man having an existential crisis while driving around. Deconstructing Harry has a similar plot albeit with a lot more sexual humour. Thankfully it also has a lot less introspection, silences and dead space than Bergman's work. But it also contains an important question: why? What is the point of all this? Why do I care?

I remember thinking the same when I watched Annie Hall. Yes, it was funny and witty, but, at the end, I couldn't help, wondering what was the point of it all? Sure, the set-up is great, but what's the punchline? Great comedies don't just make us laugh, but they make us think too. There is no doubt Woody Allen is a funny man. This was a comical film. The gag of Robin Williams being out of focus was hilarious to watch, but I'm not sure of its importance.

It's another aspect of Harry that we need to deconstruct. But why should I care about Harry? He's just another of Woody Allen's highly neurotic characters. And I do feel like neuroticism is the only role Woody Allen can play. Yes, he does it well, but it becomes quite one-note after a while.

There is no doubt Deconstructing Harry is a funny film, but beyond its comedy, how much substance does it have? What's the point of it all? What is the punchline?

Annie Hall Review

 Number 177 on the top 1000 films of all time is Woody Allen's romantic comedy-drama Annie Hall.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a neurotic, Jewish comedian living in New York. Having always been unsuccessful with women, he thinks he's struck gold with the titular Annie Hall (Diane Keaton.) But when that relationship inevitably fails, he spends the whole film wondering why.

 Generally regarded as Woody Allen's greatest film and one of the greatest comedies of all time, Annie Hall didn't particularly tickle my funny bone. Sure there were lots of clever use of meta-humour and fourth-wall breaks which were comical, but the entire film set like a set-up for a joke. I was waiting and waiting for a punchline that never arrived. I was chuckling throughout, but never rolling in the aisles, so to speak. Perhaps this is due to Woody Allen's comedic style. I'm not particularly familiar with his work, but I've read that Allen's stand-up, rather than following the conventional set up and punchline, was more of a rambling monologue.

And perhaps this is why the film didn't quite land with me. It was more of a series of comical vignettes that roughly match up as opposed to a cohesive narrative. I imagine that was intentional but it still made the film very fragmented. Furthermore, in Allen's comedy he usually plays the character of the neurotic Jewish man, which is what we see here. While this could potentially be comedic gold, and his cynical mindset elicited a few laughs, the character did start to grate on me after a while.

This isn't to say that I disliked the whole film. I did enjoy the meta-humour from Alvy's asides to the audience to the subtitles highlighting Alvy's and Annie's hidden feelings behind their shared smalltalk to when Alvy brings out the real-life Marshall Mcluhan to confront a loud-mouthed moviegoer with controversial opinions about his filmography. Diane Keaton played Annie Hall with a sympathy that made her more likeable than Alv. Her character was very much the polar opposite of him - spontaneous, optimistic and happy-go-lucky which was a refreshing change to Alv's pessimism.

And the supporting cast were great as well. Paul Simon gave a good turn as an actor, Shelley Duvall was great as usual and as always Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken were delightfully over the top. I still maintain that The Deer Hunter was Walken's best film as he is the most human there. In a lot of his other roles, he's just playing an inflated caraicture of himself.

While Annie Hall was funny in places with an Oscar-winning performance from Diane Keaton, there was just too much set-up and not enough punchline. As they say, good comedy is all in the delivery, and for me, the delivery just wasn't there.