Kind of surprised that I actually liked the new Woody Allen film. From some of the reviews I had read, and his interview on NPR I'm going, "Come on! 30 year old script? Larry David for Zero Mostel? I'm a Woody guy so I tend to catch all of his films in the theater, but this one had me walking in reluctant.
Not a perfect piece by any means but I liked where it ended up. Here's my one major negative, there were numerous times during the film when I got the feeling that David was in a different room than the rest of the players. This seemed to happen particularly when he was in a tight head and shoulders shot. Kind of like they filmed his scenes after everybody left. I wonder if these are re-shoots, and if they are, why didn't Woody pick up on the disjointedness of the scenes during the editing?
Hey, maybe it's just me. If anyone else goes to check it out, let me know if you see what I saw.
Well, I did have one other minor quibble. I didn't care for the casting of Ed Begley, Jr. Great actor, but totally unbelievable in his first scene. When introduced he's supposed to be a stiff, religious, repentant, evangelical looking to find his wife to make amends. Unlike Clarkson, totally unbelievable as a Southern anything. Now he was great in his subsequent scenes, particularly the scene of discovery in the bar. Great actor, but miscast.
On the positive side, I liked the attacking the fourth wall. Not new for Woody, and was fairly prevalent when he first penned this script, but these are played more for laughs to fairly good effect. It actually plays into the plot at the end as there's an implication that genius could be construed as possessing a wider perspective than those around you.
Not great Woody, but good Woody. ( I'll leave the puns to the pundits.)