More brilliant than brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2005)

Woody Allen is better than ever in this British-American anti-detective story. It is purely brilliant. The whole film is built on oppositions. One American girl and a very English business family, one Irishman and the same English business family, the Irish man and the American girl, and of course the two outsiders of this family will fall in love and have a passionate affair. But the American girl is a social climber somewhere, just like the Irishman. But she uses her getting pregnant to force her men to marry her, first the son of the English business family, and then the Irishman who has married the daughter of the English business family in the meantime. Unluckily the Irishman is just as much of a social climber as this American girl from Boulder, Colorado and he manages to get rid of her. So far banal. Perfectly well acted and literally pathetic. But then, the situation having been flushed down the drain  go see the film to know how  Woody Allen gets into a clear denunciation of the English police and an enormous wink at us about Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Sherlock Holmes, and even Doctor Watson. Allusion upon allusion about this nil and easily satisfied English police. That's were the film becomes a satire and a farce, and that is absolutely funny indeed. If you have been to London some time in your life, you will recognize the Gherkin, this famous building overlooking the City and competing with Big Ben as for originality. But you will not take one double-decker and go down into the underground once. Sorry, Woody Allen is not a tourist guide after all.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne