I was nauseated by Allen drooling over Mira Sorvino in MA, and I had a lot of trouble believing Julia Roberts in this movie when she called him sexy, her perfect man, etc. I hope you got a big check, Julia. Woody, what was wrong with a love interest your own age, like Diane Keaton? As old as you are, you still need to grow up.
Most of the time, the singing gimmick works. At its best, it recalls an old Fred Astaire film or Pennies From Heaven (which, if you haven't seen, I highly recommend). All the actors (except Drew Barrymore) do their own singing, which makes for some wincing, but it's a sweet idea: that sometimes even normal people just can't express their feelings with mere words (and that they don't have to sound perfect, either). But I think the reaction of the audience sums it up: for the first half of the movie, whenever someone broke into song, everyone laughed. By the end, whenever a song hovered, there were groans.
Edward Norton is a standout (how many times this year can I write that phrase?); his exuberant awkwardness transposed against professional dancers in an early production number makes his character more endearing and more human. Also fun is Tim Roth as a goofily edgy ex-con (he's also one of the better singers). Woody Allen has a few moments of his former neurotic humor, but most of time, he's just whiny, giving me the headache that seems to come whenever he's appeared on screen in the past few years.
And the best line in the movie is the explanation of why the
son (Lukas
Haas) of ultraliberal parents (Alan Alda and Goldie Hawn) suddenly
became
a raving conservative. It's like something out of Rush
Limbaugh
is a Big Fat Idiot -- and it really lets you know who in the
theater
is a Democrat.
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