Review of Irrational Man (2015) by Travis N — 30 Aug 2015

Woody Allen makes his return to the theme of getting away with murder in a godless universe that he explored so well in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point. His latest, Irrational Man, isn't quite in the same league as those two films, but it still sees the idea of murder without consequences as a great cosmic joke. Irrational Man, the story of an impotent, alcoholic professor (Joaquin Phoenix) trying to rationalize murder, is a amorality tale served stinging hot to the touch.

Phoenix is Abe Lucas, an educator filled with self-loathing for abandoning activism in Darfur and New Orleans to teach a summer course in ethical strategies at the fictional Braylin college in Rhode Island. Many of the students romanticize Abe, especially Jill Pollard (Emma Stone), who finds her boyfriend, Roy (Jamie Blackley), to be a pale whisper of a man in comparison. Abe has the same effect on Rita Richards (a wonderfully quirky Parker Posey), a faculty wife in an unhappy marriage.

It's too bad Abe can't get it up, at least not until he and Jill overhear a conversation in a diner that involves a woman suffering a dire injustice. In an about-face that owes a debt to Hitchcock of all people, Abe begins to consider a crime of justice, one in which he cannot be connected.

The Woodman skillfully crafts a mind-teaser laced with suspense that can sometimes feel like too much of an intellectual exercise if not for the humanity and nuance Phoenix and Stone imbue it with. The philosophical bubble that Allen concocts in Irrational Man is enough to keep you pondering for days.