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Anything Else
Woody Allen provided a real hit-and-miss tale with 2003's Anything Else, a pretentious and nonsensical comedy that provides some very superficial laughs, but never quite becomes what it should be thanks to some really unlikable and not very bright characters doing some ridiculous things.
Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs) is a comedy writer and bundle of neuroses who is the only client of a third rate agent named Harvey Wexler (Danny DeVito). Jerry becomes fast friends with a much older comedy writer named David Dobel (Allen), a cynical, tightly wound gun nut and closet survivalist who becomes Jerry's adviser in all aspects of his life, particularly, his maddening relationship with Amanda (Christina Ricci), a self-absorbed drama queen who redefines the term "high maintenance."
Woody hasn't done anything this strange since Melinda and Melinda, I'm just not sure what he was trying to do here. The story initially appear to be about Jerry's relationship with Dobel, which really doesn't make sense anyway because Dobel is 30 years older than Jerry. These two guys have nothing in common but their profession. Every time they have a conversation, Dobel manages to work a word into their conversation that no one ever uses and the way that Jerry and David refer to each other by their surnames was pretentious and maddening. I've never known anyone in my entire life that I only referred to them by their surname.
The real problem with this story is this character Amanda and all the crap she puts Jerry through. She is a flighty and full of herself chain smoker who thinks she wants to be an actress and embraces any opportunity she can to get Jerry to spend money on her. She also hasn't had sex with Jerry in six months but seems to have no problem having sex with other men and justifies it by telling Jerry to sleep with other women. She also does nothing to stop her equally self-absorbed mother (Stockard Channing) from moving in with them so that she can work on her new nightclub act. It's not only everything Amanda does, but, as a viewer, we scratch our heads wondering why Jerry puts up with this crap.
Allen still has an ear for funny dialogue, though this screenplay seems to be talking above his audience more than usual, but these mostly unappealing characters and the stupid stuff they do here make the sporadic laughs kind of empty and unmotivated from anything genuine.
As unappealing as the character was, Christina Ricci delivers a blistering performance as the toxic Amanda, one the most fascinating performances I have ever seen from her. Jason Biggs works hard as Jerry, who serves as our narrator for the story and speaks directly to the camera, but I never really buy him as a comedy writer because there was nothing funny about this guy. Channing and DeVito also make the most of their screen time, but becoming completely engaged in this bizarre little comedy was impossible.
Woody Allen provided a real hit-and-miss tale with 2003's Anything Else, a pretentious and nonsensical comedy that provides some very superficial laughs, but never quite becomes what it should be thanks to some really unlikable and not very bright characters doing some ridiculous things.
Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs) is a comedy writer and bundle of neuroses who is the only client of a third rate agent named Harvey Wexler (Danny DeVito). Jerry becomes fast friends with a much older comedy writer named David Dobel (Allen), a cynical, tightly wound gun nut and closet survivalist who becomes Jerry's adviser in all aspects of his life, particularly, his maddening relationship with Amanda (Christina Ricci), a self-absorbed drama queen who redefines the term "high maintenance."
Woody hasn't done anything this strange since Melinda and Melinda, I'm just not sure what he was trying to do here. The story initially appear to be about Jerry's relationship with Dobel, which really doesn't make sense anyway because Dobel is 30 years older than Jerry. These two guys have nothing in common but their profession. Every time they have a conversation, Dobel manages to work a word into their conversation that no one ever uses and the way that Jerry and David refer to each other by their surnames was pretentious and maddening. I've never known anyone in my entire life that I only referred to them by their surname.
The real problem with this story is this character Amanda and all the crap she puts Jerry through. She is a flighty and full of herself chain smoker who thinks she wants to be an actress and embraces any opportunity she can to get Jerry to spend money on her. She also hasn't had sex with Jerry in six months but seems to have no problem having sex with other men and justifies it by telling Jerry to sleep with other women. She also does nothing to stop her equally self-absorbed mother (Stockard Channing) from moving in with them so that she can work on her new nightclub act. It's not only everything Amanda does, but, as a viewer, we scratch our heads wondering why Jerry puts up with this crap.
Allen still has an ear for funny dialogue, though this screenplay seems to be talking above his audience more than usual, but these mostly unappealing characters and the stupid stuff they do here make the sporadic laughs kind of empty and unmotivated from anything genuine.
As unappealing as the character was, Christina Ricci delivers a blistering performance as the toxic Amanda, one the most fascinating performances I have ever seen from her. Jason Biggs works hard as Jerry, who serves as our narrator for the story and speaks directly to the camera, but I never really buy him as a comedy writer because there was nothing funny about this guy. Channing and DeVito also make the most of their screen time, but becoming completely engaged in this bizarre little comedy was impossible.