Review of Anything Else (2003) by Patrick L — 07 Jan 2008

Woody Allen has suffered a rough time in the past 10 years. Audiences seem to no longer understand his humour and his pathos, which unfortunately leads to his films struggling - like this little comedic Allen gem, which didn't even get a cinema release in my native Australia. Oh the shame!

The plot here is nothing new - a couple, in New York, in a relationship where both parties are total neurotics. Nothing new for an Allen film, right? However, add in Allen himself in an unusual character role (the survivalist, pro-gun writer David Dobel) and nice turns by Cybil Sheperd and Danny DeVito, and we have a nice, but slight, movie.

To get the bad out of the way first - Jason Biggs is not the right actor to play the 'Allen-esque' character. I know he must have struggled stepping into the shoes of actors such as Kenneth Brannagh, John Cusack or Allen himself (who have all played the typical Allen 'nebbish') but jeez... Where he really fails is in the Annie Hall-style direct-to-camera dialogue. It's painful, and the movie suffers for it.

If you can get past him, Christina Ricci's performance as the mildly insane Amanda is wonderful. She may be the perfect incarnation of the Allen neurotic female lead.

So there's nothing new here... big deal. It's warm, funny, has a great score (and an appearance by Diana Krall) and, as one of the lines in the film states, it's full of truisms. Not just jokes - truisms. And that's what has seperated Allen from the bulk of hackneyed comedy writers for so many years - his films have very real, flawed characters full of pathos, but they're still very likeable.

It'll never be a favourite Allen (that honour goes to 'Manhattan') but you could find far, far, far worse ways to spend 100 minutes.