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Manhattan 10 out of 10 Posted: 07/11/08
Running time: 1:36 MPAA rating: R (Sexual situations and brief language.) Peruvian rating: Mayores de 18
Cast:
Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael
Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne, Karen Ludwig,
Michael O'Donoghue.
Photography:
Gordon Willis |
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Manhattan is not only a romantic comedy from Master Woody Allen; it’s also a love letter to the titular city. The film is one of the most intelligent, funny and entertaining I’ve ever seen. What is so great about it? It doesn’t limit itself to being only one thing, and it succeeds at trying to do many things at once for the audience. It’s got humour (smart humour, by the way), romance and drama. Music is great, of course, (being a lover of Jazz much like Woody, I always enjoy his movies on a musical level) and performances are as memorable as Allen’s screenplay. Most importantly, though, it also shows how lackluster Allen has become in recent years. (Apart from the incredible Match Point, he hasn’t done anything remotely memorable in the last ten years, although Vicky Cristina Barcelona looks promising.) I’ve only seen the film once, but I already have become a fan of it.
The movie tells the story of neurotic TV script-writer Isaac (Allen), who is dating the 17-year old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), who seems to love him and ends up being the most honest character in the film. His ex-wife (Meryl Streep in a surprisingly small role), who is now living with another woman, is publishing a book about their sex-life, and Isaac’s best friend, the married Yale (Michael Murphy), is having an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton) After meeting her, our protagonist falls in love with Mary (they initially seem to be completely incompatible, but eventually realize they can get along just fine) and stops seeing Tracy to start things with her. The problem? It seems Yale and Mary never stopped loving each other.
It is clear from watching Manhattan that Allen loved the city. The film starts with a montage of images showing the city and its people, with a voice over by Allen trying to start a novel about it, but being unable to write “Chapter 1.” As the voice over says, Allen has romanticized New York “all out of proportion”; the version of Manhattan we see in this movie has never and will never exist, as it only belongs to Allen and the characters populating his film. The way Allen decided to shoot the movie – using black and white photography – emphasises this, as it gives a timeless and romantic quality to the picture, making it look beautiful and almost surreal. This, combined with George Gershwin’s music (the film starts with his “Rhapsody in Blue”) makes Allen’s version of Manhattan feel dreamy and very much his own. The best thing is that his artistic decision doesn’t affect the movie in any negative way; actually, it works very well for the story he’s trying to tell.
Although Manhattan is more of a romance and a character study, Allen’s “style” of humour is evident throughout the film. This is no gross-out, stupid comedy; Manhattan is a type of movie that is very rare nowadays: an intelligent comedy. It manages to be hilarious while being smart, something that very few films accomplish these days. What I like about this particular motion picture is that it doesn’t sacrifice content for humour; every line in Allen’s screenplay is full of quirky remarks and literate jokes. Most of these jokes will go over the heads of the audience – I must admit many of them went over my head -, but if you know something about many things, you’ll get many of Allen’s one-liners. Yeah, the more cultured you are, the funnier you’ll find this film… is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Although I really like gross-out comedy when done right (as in The 40 year old virgin or Knocked Up), I prefer this type of humour because it doesn’t underestimate its audience; the viewer isn’t required to turn off his/her brain, which is something remarkable considering this kind of motion picture has been almost dead for the last twenty years or so.
Funny as it is, Manhattan is not only a comedy. Allen manages to tell an amazingly compelling and touching story without sacrificing neither the humour nor its characters. So yeah, Allen doesn’t act too much because, in real life, he has the same personality as Isaac, but that doesn’t make him a less interesting character. His relationships with Tracy and Mary are what make Manhattan so successful, actually. Instead of showing only the pretty, funny stuff (like most conventional romantic comedies, including the really bad ones), Allen tells the whole story of his romantic “adventures”: we have the breaking up with Tracy, the meeting with Mary, the breaking up with Mary, and of course, the ending, which is unconventional to say the least. Most romantic comedies end up with the two leads kissing and hugging after they’ve done everything to end up together; Manhattan’s ending is melancholic rather than sweet, and it completes Isaac’s character arc in the most compelling way possible. Who does he end with? That’s for the viewer to find out, but if you’re accustomed to the formulaic romantic comedies of today, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Performances, as in most (if not all) Woody Allen movies, are superb. Allen himself is a great protagonist, despite the fact that he acts in the same neurotic way as in every other film he’s appeared. The character (and Woody himself too) has loads of things to say – he talks about love, sex, relationships, Jazz, and Ingmar Bergman, among other things. Diane Keaton, appearing in her second Allen flick after the superb Annie Hall, is amazing too. She’s strong and intelligent, and has almost as many problems as Isaac, only that she complains a little less. Mariel Hemingway (Tracy) is one of the best performers (she won an Oscar, actually), making the character memorable and naïve enough. I like the fact that Mary is the only honest character in the film – she is the only one that knows her feelings and expresses them. Supporting performances by Michael Murphy (as Yale) and Meryl Streep (as Isaac’s ex-wife) are really good too.
Manhattan, along with Annie Hall, is one of the best romantic comedies I’ve ever seen. Granted, there are other ones that are almost as masterful as this one – When Harry Met Sally…, for example – but this one is particularly memorable because it doesn’t follow the formula. There’s not “boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, girl-returns” crap in here. This is an intelligent film that chronicles the entire story of a character’s love-and-sex life, as well as a love letter to Manhattan which, for Allen at least, seems to be the most beautiful city in the world. The great thing about Manhattan is that it’s more ambitious than the average romantic comedy – it actually says something about life and relationships, and contains, apart from romance, humour and drama and quirky and smart remarks. It’s a little sad, actually, to watch recent (mediocre) Allen movies like Scoop or Cassandra’s Dream. We know he’s capable of much more, and I’m just hoping that the upcoming Vicky Cristina Barcelona won’t be disappointing.
©2008 Sebastián Zavala - GG site