Anything Else Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)September 18th, 2003
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Okay; you were all right - Woody Allen is losing it. Anything Else doesn't measure up to the writer/director's best work, but is that really a fair comparison to make? Sure, it's no Annie Hall, or even Everyone Says I Love You, but as far as romantic comedies go, his latest is still way more enjoyable and imaginative than anything else out there. Hey, maybe that's where Woody came up with the title.
He's in a tough spot, Woody is. If he keeps casting himself as the main character-slash-romantic interest, people complain. If he uses younger actors to play the parts he would ordinarily take, people complain. And if he makes a film that deviates from the whole Nebbish/Sophisticate romance template, people complain. That's a lot of complaining, especially when the complainers overlook the fact that Woody is still one of the best comedic actors around and continues to pound out originally original screenplays every year.
Like he did with John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway, Allen taps the appropriately timid Jason Biggs (American Wedding) to play the Woody-esque role of Jerry Faulk, a struggling comedy writer in Manhattan who supplies jokes to marginally talented standup acts. Jerry's girlfriend is Amanda (Christina Ricci, Pumpkin), a morally questionable aspiring actress and singer who is obsessed with smoking, her weight, taking pills and getting freaked out whenever Jerry tries to get physical with her. His confidante and occasional writing partner (Allen) is a paranoid university professor with a survival kit and a bit of a dark side to his personality.
When needy Amanda's equally needy mother (Stockard Channing, The West Wing) moves into their already cramped apartment and Woody's character suggests he and Jerry move to Los Angeles to take a gig writing for a sitcom, things come to a head - but not before two very extended sequences which depict the courting of Jerry and Amanda, as well as a brief breakup the two previously had (the latter is very disjointed as it isn't immediately clear it's a flashback).
Now, I can buy Biggs as Woody, Jr., but Ricci sure ain't no Diane Keaton. She isn't even Louise Lasser. Amanda is plenty easy on the eyes, but the character is nearly as unlikable as Ricci's turn in Prozac Nation. In fact, there are times when she seems like a slightly more adult version of her Elizabeth Wurtzel. I can't recall Allen creating a less amiable character, aside from making an out-and-out villain. She's so bad, I almost stopped rooting for Jerry just because it took him so long to realize what a bitch Amanda is.
Aside from that, you can look for the same type of humor, along with the same opening and closing credits and soundtrack one would expect from a Woody Allen film. Gifted cinematographer Darius Khondji does little to separate Else from anything else (there I go again) Allen has made recently. What is different, however, is Allen's pacing of his picture. It's surprisingly uneven for a filmmaker whose movies are generally tight, crisp productions. But like I said up above - Else is still a step above the typical romantic comedy.
1:41 - R for a scene of drug use and some sexual references
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