Review of Radio Days (1987) by Sausages M — 26 Aug 2012

You really can't fault this film, except for its nostalgia, which you suspect may be a little rose-tinted. In the first half it is incredibly dynamic and flashy and there are lots of laughs. That's because it's just a series of vignettes stitched together by Allen's narration (he's not actually physically in the film except as Seth Green playing an only-slightly fictionalised younger version of him who would actually have to be a bit older than Woody is). You do get a real feeling for the era and for his family, though- the sketches amount to more than the sum of their parts.

As the film progresses, though, you get the sense that Woody decides to actually give a bit of depth to the characters. Consequently, the vignettes get longer and longer, particularly the story of Mia's Sally White which becomes a sub-plot which the movie decides to follow more intensively, and the main thrust (Allen's childhood) seems a little sidelined. However, somehow it manages to work.

Lots of people see Woody's middle period as underrated but I don't find it so. The films are more artistic but they do have a tendency to meander and get lost in the past a bit. But despite all of this, it's still a good film. One can see here he took the childhood flashbacks from Annie Hall and expanded on them, and it's fascinating and entertaining in equal measure, for the most part.