So disappointing!

Rating: 2/10 (29 January 2006)

As a long time Woody Allen addict, I never thought I would complain that he had made a bad movie, but sadly that day has arrived. I heard him interviewed on the BBC saying how easy it had been to relocate from his familiar territory in New York and the Hamptons to London and the Home Counties, and I suspect that is where the problem lies. He has delivered a shallow, picture postcard view of England, and an outsider's half-baked idea of social class in England. As a Londoner, I say that if he would stick to the NY settings he knows so intimately, we Brits would continue flocking to his movies and loving them. What's worse (and probably connected to the first problem) the acting and direction feel painfully slow and stilted. And why, in the scenes at the Opera House, were the performances accompanied by a piano, not an orchestra? Would the budget not stretch to paying the orchestra? A trivial point, perhaps, but it distracted me. Redeeming points: a nice performance by the lovely Scarlett Johansson and an interesting plot twist towards the end. But I have rarely left a cinema feeling so deflated!