Lacks depth, both in narrative and characterization

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2006)

A mock documentary, this film needed great work by all involved to come out right. The actors come through as well as they can with the material they have to work with, the directing is satisfactory, and the writing is pretty good for what it is, but the film is crippled through incompleteness. The portrayal of Emmet Ray seems to be truncated, not due to poor acting, but due to the limited scope of the script, and if one were to suppose that the two dimensional portrait was due to character flaw, then this would only highlight the shallowness of the narrative.
Ultimately, Emmet Ray, his wife, and most supporting characters in this film are not quite men and women, but are rather archetypes, wonderful as secondary characters, but incomplete as primary characters. Emmet Ray resembles the cartoon character "Bender" in Futurama far more than he resembles a living man. Woody Allen has created a patron saint of artistic selfishness, and Emmet Ray may be a satisfactory alter-ego for the director, but he is not a complete portrait of even the most obnoxious musician, and we are presented with only a burnt out butt of a narrative.