Review of Melinda and Melinda (2004) by Claes L — 25 Feb 2005

A group of friends sit and talk over dinner in a Manhattan restaurant and the subject of whether life is comical or tragic is brought up. it also just so happens that two of the friends are playwrights. one writes tragedies while the other writes comedies. both have been very successful doing their own thing, and they would like to think the audience prefers their own genre. "tragedy is confrontational, comedy is escape", argues the comedic playwright. a third friend butts in with a story that happened to someone he knows, where an old friend named Melinda crashed a dinner party. the comedy writer finds it to be a great setup for a romantic comedy, while the tragedy writer thinks she must've been desperate and depressed to crash a party like that. with that as their starting point, they both begin telling how the story of Melinda would go on from there, one looking at it from his comedic viewpoint, and the other from his tragic, more dramatic viewpoint.

and that's how [b]Melinda and Melinda[/b], Woody Allen's best films in quite some time, begins. it's actually the best film he's done since [b]Deconstructing Harry[/b] (of which I am a bigger fan than most) and certainly his most ambitious film in even longer than that. not only is it wickedly funny and features a really outstanding performance by Radha Mitchell, but it's such a terrific, yet so deceptively simple story, cleverly written by Allen and effortlessly weaved together by editor Alisa Lepselter. Allen hasn't always been able to bring the potential most of his films have to screen, but he definitely does this time. i'm not saying it's Woody Allen back to the 70's or even the 80's, but it's definitely the best Allen film in a great many years.

the highlight of the film is Radha Mitchell (who plays Melinda if you hadn't guessed that already). she handles all aspects of the two Melindas wonderfully, giving a good comedic performance and an even better dramatic performance. it's especially the tragic Melinda that shows us what a terrific performance this is, so lots of kudos to Mitchell for hitting it out of the park. the rest of the cast deserve praise too though, especially Will Ferrell who plays the Woody Allen film persona in the comedic parts. he plays a failed actor whose marriage is falling apart as he finds himself falling for Melinda. i've always liked Ferrell as a comedian, and I have to say this is the funniest he's been since [b]Elf[/b]. it's a very good rebound role from that terribly unfunny [b]Anchorman[/b], for sure. Ferrell doesn't take on all the neurotic ticks of Allen, but I think that's good. we can all see he's playing Allen's part, but it's not too much of an imitation, which I greatly appreciated. Ferrell goes with it, and makes it his own. the rest of the cast, made up of the likes of Amanda Peet, Chloë Sevigny, Jonny Lee Miller and Chiwetel Ejiofor perform well with what they're given, but it's really all about Radha Mitchell (and Will Ferrell to lesser extent to provide the humor).

I also found myself impressed by the visual look of the film. it's a small budgeted contemporary drama/comedy, so it's not exactly lavish sets, costumes and all that, but for this type of film, I really liked the way it looked. Vilmos Zsigmond lit and shot the film very nicely with a soft glow, and the art director and set decorator did a very good job at bringing to life all these various apartments much of the film takes place in.

if you even remotely like Woody Allen (or good movies for that matter), I suggest keeping an eye out for this one. it's definitely the best, most insightful, ambitious and funny film that Allen has produced in quite some time. it may not be a masterpiece, but it's damn good.

**** stars out of five.