Might Soon Yi be jealous?

Rating: Null/10 (27 October 2008)

Allen's little atheistic one-liners and musings were always a nice change from the religious baloney we get in other movies. MP's basic point isn't a theme as trite as fidelity (as some people here seem to think) but the factor of luck that dominates everyone's life from the word go. Meyers got away with murder merely because the ring didn't fall into the Thames river. Sure, it's a bit fortune-cookie-ish, the "grand" way in which this startling new philosophical revelation was presented, i.e. it can't be anything new to anyone above the age of 12 (excepting morons), but it gave Allen an opportunity to make a dull drama once again (after "Interiors"). As we know, all comedians are miserable bastards who strive to be taken seriously, which they all seem to think can only be achieved through the channeling of their energy into drama. How stupid. Or perhaps writing a drama is much easier than coming up with something funny. Well, no "perhaps" about it.
A romantic drama, no less, for at least 90 minutes of this over-long 2-hour movie. What was he thinking? MP has the plot of a typical movie-of-the-week man-cheats-wife-and-it-all-ends-in-murder TV drama, only with marginally better acting and dialogue. Meyers is a poor boy who's made his way through tennis, he gets into a very rich family, he gets fatally attracted to his future brother-in-law's fiancée, things start getting complicated etc... Most of the movie is Meyers lying to his wife or having sex with Johansson, all of this interspersed with surprisingly stilted dialogue which reveals Allen's inability to write for straight characters. And let's not forget all the coincidences...
The theme of luck serves as a very convenient excuse for all the cheap plot-devices that had characters bumping into one another in the streets of London, which isn't exactly a small Welsh mining town. Clever, Woody, clever. Nevertheless, whether you have an excuse for it or not, it's always lazy and unoriginal writing to employ such clichés/tricks.
But forget luck. Now we come to the REAL purpose behind this movie: let's face it, MP was written and made as a simple excuse for Woody to film his latest female obsession - Scarlett Johansson - having sex scenes. ("Artistic muse", my a**...) Many directors have tried this sort of thing, and some even got lucky by hooking up with the star bimbo. Of course, Woody is far too old and funny-looking (trying to be diplomatic here) for Scarlett to help turn his burning-desire/fantasy into reality. They'll never become a couple, but God knows WA will be trying for years to come... ("Scarlett, honey, I have a new movie for you. Will you please play a starving, nymphomaniac hooker?" "Of course, I will, Woody. You know that it's, like, always a huge honour to work with an artist like you, and stuff!") Draw your own conclusions as to what Woody was doing in his trailer on the days when the sex scenes with Scarlett were being shot (no pun intended)... (Damn, Hollywood is full of dysfunctional morons...)
Intentional or not, MP reveals the full extent of WA's decadence and lack of morality. The theme of casually cheating on your partner with your best friend's wife/husband is nothing new to Woody. ("Husbands & Wives", as just one example.) He always presents it as something that isn't so bad. In fact, he even makes the cheaters likable. No wonder. After all, this is the man who MARRIED HIS DAUGHTER, lest we forget. Woody Allen the private person has absolutely no scruples whatsoever, hence his relatively sympathetic portrayal of two selfish adulterers, Johansson and Meyers, is not a surprise.
The casting is problematic too. Meyers, who appears in just about every scene, simply isn't capable of carrying a 2-hour movie. He has the charisma of a fish. Besides, we never quite understand what exactly attracts the "wild" Scarlett to him; he is like a lifeless android, always dull and polite. It was also predictable that the ghosts of Meyers' victims would appear at some point. Allen's fanatical devotion to the Swedish charlatan, critics' darling, and gloom-and-doom suicidario, Ingmar Bergman, is on record... Check out the poster for MP: there's a hint of Bergmanesqueness there. So blatant, so shameless.
Thank God the tennis scenes were sparse. If I had been forced to watch the very unathletic Meyers hit those lousy ground strokes another minute more, I'd have freaked out. Isn't there a single male actor out there who can play just one shot properly? Pathetic. You can't show an average player hit his mediocre shots, and then expect to have us believe that he almost became a pro...