Review of Manhattan (1979) by Nick O — 26 Jun 2011

The title is about as vague as you'll get in "Manhattan". Note its grandiosity, and prepare for a curveball. Sexual obsession is on the lips of every character and place in Woody Allen's Freudian masterpiece, because in this town all cars go while doubt hits the brakes. What's the big deal when it's in the pursuit of love? Allen's Isaac Davis is classic writer type, part of a popular prime time show in New York that runs on whatever keeps the in-house crowd bubbly. What's Davis to do other than shack up with seventeen-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway, so good you might fact-check her namesake)? To lax his conflicted mind, of course.

Only it's the off-screen relationship Davis now wants out of when pal Yale (Michael Murphy) introduces him to his mistress Mary (a never-better Diane Keaton) -- away from wife Emily (Anne Byrne) -- the intellectual match for Davis in terms of opposites and sunken morality. Wave good-bye to reason -- this dude's floored; Mary's a paramour straight from a Fellini movie. Go ahead and sweat connecting the dots: it's fun, even if it's not exactly Allen's endgame. In the underground city-that-never-sleeps, Allen channels every great scribe from his bastard days of yore. The influences on the relationships in "Manhattan" couldn't be clearer: should Mary stick with the ticking bomb Davis or turn back to the married Yale, whom she thinks she really loves?

That's heartbreak for ya, the constant "what if" buzzing far and wide. In "Manhattan", the human details are the ones acting like open doors. Run quick before they close, and never look back. if "Annie Hall" found a romance in deviating retrospect, "Manhattan" awakes the infinite pain in immediate reverse. Say what you will about Allen's real-life dating the minor league -- long as he can push out unblinking beauties like this, I'd call whatever else his private shots in the dark.