Life's A Movie

Rating: 9/10 (5 September 2006)

If any one piece of work made Woody the chief target of "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche", this is it.
Prior to this (as the 'actor') he played in the space between the movie reality and us - a territory upon which no one else 'in the movie' could trespass. He surrounded himself with characters who were oblivious to the satire, and the jokes centered on pinging away at the 'movie reality'.
Here we have Woody 'playing himself' (under a pseudonym), which isn't really playing...he just "is" a bundle of neuroses, and that's enough. But the equation is completely rearranged. This time, Woody frames the movie with a performance to us; he plays within the movie to us; he draws characters from within the movie to join him in 'the movie in his head'; he shifts the narrative from present to past and back, at times for his past, at times for Keaton's 'past'; he plays within the movie to Keaton, which is the only thing resembling a 'story'. However, there's NO satire - every cultural target appears exactly as it really is. Taking the brunt of the hits are the New York intelligentsia, and later, the L.A. Sybarites. It's the rather ingenious multi-layered construction that makes this fly.
This is the basis the of the entire "Seinfeld" series, and the launching pad for countless New York stories - e.g., "When Harry Met Sally".
Novel, scattershot, mostly brilliant.