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Melinda and Melinda Like you, I used to get excited when I heard Woody Allen had a new film coming out, but those days are long gone. Now, we wait and hope this one is better than the last. No such luck with Melinda and Melinda. One night at dinner, two writers hear a fascinating story, and (in a conversation that would never take place anywhere on the face of the planet) begin to debate whether the story as told to them is full of comic potential or tragedy. To explain his point, each writer describes the movie they would make from the facts presented to them, and we watch two separate movies develop before our disbelieving eyes. One version has Will Ferrell playing Woody Allen. The other does not. Will either film be interesting? Sadly, neither story is compelling, exciting, dramatic or even very funny. Melinda and Melinda is an attempt at something intellectually stimulating, some sort of high minded conversation that would take place in a comedy of manners, but fails to catch fire due to its own lack of compelling material. Each story wanders about without a central theme driving the action, while Allen seems content only to include similar facts and plot twists in each version, as if that is supposed to be impressive enough. Characters don't develop, and meaningful dialogue is non-existent. It's hard to say we care about any of these characters, even Will Ferrell, playing the proto-typical Woody Allen role of a man longing for the beautiful, troubled Melinda (Radha Mitchell), even though he is married, and she is off on another relationship. Ferrell gets some laughs from the audience, but you have to think it's because we already like him and are wiling to cut the guy some slack as he tries to make the story work for us. Writing this review hurts, and I'm sure seeing Melinda and Melinda will bring pain for most Woody Allen fans. As I watched the film, I kept thinking about how Allen exists in some parallel reality in the Upper West Side that doesn't even exist, and maybe never did. While his contemporaries like Scorsese and Eastwood in recent years have branched out to produce a diverse set of films like The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gangs of New York, Woody seems to be doing the same stuff over and over again or creating the type of movie that would have been made in the 1950's. His best work in the last 5 years, Sweet and Lowdown, was a bit of a departure from all of that, and makes me feel he needs to branch out and do something different to rejuvenate the creative juices. Like M. Night Shyamalan has become hamstrung by the need to produce films with THE BIG TWIST, Allen is weighed down by the Woody Allen Angst. How cool would it be to see Woody Allen's The Ring Three? Sin City? A Johnny Depp movie? A challenge would bring out the best in a very talented director, one who stands among the greats in cinema history. He just needs to take a chance. I'd rather see him fail with something new, than fail with something old, like Melinda and Melinda. 0 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2005 - WaffleMovies.com
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