← Back to Reviews
in
#252 - Manhattan
Woody Allen, 1979
A middle-aged TV writer quits his job to work on a book while also contending with a variety of complications related to the love lives of both himself and his acquaintances.
The best thing about Manhattan by a long shot is the sumptuous monochrome cinematography by Gordon Willis, which certainly helps a lot in trying to capture Allen's beloved New York City with the same romantically complex air that he tries to cover through the film's actual narrative. While I did sort of like Annie Hall when I first saw it (though my review of it earlier this year indicated I ultimately don't like it enough), my first viewing of Manhattan didn't leave much of an impression beyond its amazing cinematography and also being the movie where Woody Allen's self-insert character dates a seventeen-year-old (though that was obviously not a good impression to leave, especially in light of recent real-life events). Beyond that, I barely remembered anything about it, and I figured that, as with Annie Hall, I probably owed it a second chance - this despite the general antipathy I feel towards Allen's films (which has been documented repeatedly in recent months).
The main thing that stops me liking Allen films is that I genuinely find it hard to care about the various plights of the characters. Allen once again plays a comedy writer, this time going through a number of crises - in addition to abruptly quitting his job at the start of the movie so he can write a book, he also has to contend with his dating a teenager (Mariel Hemingway) while also wanting to date his best friend's mistress (Diane Keaton), plus his lesbian ex-wife (Meryl Streep) is planning on publishing a tell-all story about their failed marriage. Given the circumstances, it's hard to think of his character as sympathetic or even engaging as he blunders through his various problems with line after line after line after line of not-particularly-clever dialogue. Most of the other characters are similarly unengaging, even the ones that do engender some degree of sympathy (such as Streep's stuck-up character who does apparently have some serious grievances against Allen's, or Hemingway's character who is obviously a little out of her depth by continuing a relationship with Allen). There's not all that much structure to the plot, with the characters constantly splitting up or getting together or being extremely tangential to the real plot. The only thing that keeps it halfway-tolerable are the slickly-captured backdrops that all this banal upper-middle-class New Yorker drama plays out against (though the jazz music on the background varies very wildly in quality). It's interesting to read how Allen actually didn't like how the film turned out - for once, I'm inclined to agree with him on something.
Woody Allen, 1979
A middle-aged TV writer quits his job to work on a book while also contending with a variety of complications related to the love lives of both himself and his acquaintances.
The best thing about Manhattan by a long shot is the sumptuous monochrome cinematography by Gordon Willis, which certainly helps a lot in trying to capture Allen's beloved New York City with the same romantically complex air that he tries to cover through the film's actual narrative. While I did sort of like Annie Hall when I first saw it (though my review of it earlier this year indicated I ultimately don't like it enough), my first viewing of Manhattan didn't leave much of an impression beyond its amazing cinematography and also being the movie where Woody Allen's self-insert character dates a seventeen-year-old (though that was obviously not a good impression to leave, especially in light of recent real-life events). Beyond that, I barely remembered anything about it, and I figured that, as with Annie Hall, I probably owed it a second chance - this despite the general antipathy I feel towards Allen's films (which has been documented repeatedly in recent months).
The main thing that stops me liking Allen films is that I genuinely find it hard to care about the various plights of the characters. Allen once again plays a comedy writer, this time going through a number of crises - in addition to abruptly quitting his job at the start of the movie so he can write a book, he also has to contend with his dating a teenager (Mariel Hemingway) while also wanting to date his best friend's mistress (Diane Keaton), plus his lesbian ex-wife (Meryl Streep) is planning on publishing a tell-all story about their failed marriage. Given the circumstances, it's hard to think of his character as sympathetic or even engaging as he blunders through his various problems with line after line after line after line of not-particularly-clever dialogue. Most of the other characters are similarly unengaging, even the ones that do engender some degree of sympathy (such as Streep's stuck-up character who does apparently have some serious grievances against Allen's, or Hemingway's character who is obviously a little out of her depth by continuing a relationship with Allen). There's not all that much structure to the plot, with the characters constantly splitting up or getting together or being extremely tangential to the real plot. The only thing that keeps it halfway-tolerable are the slickly-captured backdrops that all this banal upper-middle-class New Yorker drama plays out against (though the jazz music on the background varies very wildly in quality). It's interesting to read how Allen actually didn't like how the film turned out - for once, I'm inclined to agree with him on something.