Is life a tragedy or a comedy? Set in a Chinese restaurant, Woody Allen’s latest film, “Melinda and Melinda,” discusses this and many more of life’s issues, in two versions of one story about a girl named Melinda.
Allen relies on audience confusion for at least the beginning of this film, as a group of New York City thespians discuss the essence of life.
After hearing a story about a woman who unexpectedly burst into a dinner party, two playwrights battle out their views on life’s basic tendencies. Their opposing responses jolt and amuse as they weave in varying degrees of parallelism throughout the film.
The real tie between the two stories, though, is Melinda.
Leading the talented cast of virtual no-names is the SNL-turned-movie star Will Ferrell. He and the rest take over for Allen as he stays behind the camera and molds his players into, well, varying aspects of himself, or at least his past characters.
Ferrell plays the traditional Woody-esque character, Hobie, caught up in the endless complexities and awkward scenarios of life in the comedy version of Melinda’s story.
Hobie is an unemployed neurotic actor in the midst of a failing relationship.
His character exists in the story about life as a comedy.
He falls in love with the girl with the troubled past who randomly waltzed into a dinner party he was awkwardly hosting, but she’s currently living with the man Hobie introduced her to.
With humor and madness abounding, this story is sure to entertain.
But don’t worry, ye cynics, it is only about every other scene that you will have to sit through the awful reminder that some people think life is good.
The other story’s Melinda is continually haunted by her past filled with murder, mental institutions, failed child custody hearings and love affairs. She is picked up only to be shot down in this more tragic rendition of her life.
She falls in love with a well-to-do pianist who makes her “want to want to live” only to be left by him for the married woman who virtually introduced the two.
It soon becomes clear that the two playwrights are feeding off each other’s settings, characters, soundtracks and props. These connections lead to more thematic connections, which lead even further to a big life connection in the end.
Maybe that ruins the ending for you, but it shouldn’t. Allen’s new film is hilarious and touching with great wit and extreme originality when it comes to style. But when it comes to themes, I think he knows he is dealing with one of the oldest discussions in the proverbial book. What is lacking in theme is more than made up for in style and plot.
He jolts the viewer around a bit, but it is in true Woody Allen form, for the sake of being different and entertaining. The format of the film is a throwback to some of his greatest films, but that format may not be as welcome today as it was in the 70s. Allen’s wit is aimed at upper-class knowledge of plays, philosophy, literature and of course humor, and his films are notoriously different from other people’s films, but they are not very different from each other.
Woody Allen fans will love this film because it’s the best in a long time, but Will Ferrell fans will not be as accepting. Frankly, it is a mystery why he is even a part of it. His impression of Woody Allen’s comic timing, mannerisms and vocal inflections are impeccable, but they are too similar. He doesn’t use his talent to come up with his own version of the Woody Allen character, and it’s very obvious and almost annoying.
One good thing to come of this film for the masses is the potential of Radha Mitchell, the actress playing Melinda in both versions of the story. Her versatility and style are as much her own as they are Allen’s. If everyone else in the film were to breathe this sort of life into the traditional Woody Allen script, “Melinda and Melinda” would be easier to take in. The plethora of brand new one-liners and refreshing throwbacks to the 70s comedy style of a genius filmmaker, though, are impossible to pass up for any fan of film.
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