A Benchmark

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 2003)

Who hasn't stood in line in front of a foolishly pontificating ill-informed blow hard and wished for a large sock with manure in it? Who hasn't fallen in love with someone only to wonder why that person would fall in love with the likes of you? Who hasn't loved someone so much, just as they are, that you wanted to change them to make them perfect? Who hasn't - as an analogy - treated the end of love like a coward treats a machine gun nest, rushing into the line of fire just to get it over with?
Yes, this is Allen's best film, because it is Allen's most universal. You do not have to be a New York Jewish intellectual undergoing psychoanalysis three times a day for this movie to resonate with you. You simply need to do what we all do: love not wisely, but too well. This movie is a benchmark for Allen; moving away from his earlier, "funny" movies to his more serious stuff. It hasn't always been a smooth transition, and many of his later movies ignore that what Allen does best is be funny - only Crimes and Misdemeanors, of his later films, works without being consistently funny. But here, as in Hannah and Her Sisters and Manhattan, Woody Allen mixes his seriousness of purpose and humor expertly.