One of Woody Allen's best

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2009)

It has become fashionable to 'dump on' Woody Allen these days. People say he's past it, his films aren't what they were, why doesn't he dry up. That is all nonsense. This film has all the freshness and verve of the Woody of his youthful prime. People forget that 'Take the Money and Run', his first film, was terrible. It took him a long time to become as good a director as he is. He had to struggle against categories, trying to be serious sometimes (it could be said he has always been serious, and his humour was a blind). In this wonderful film, containing some of the funniest of scenes, and from which he is absent as an actor, we find a serious tale communicated to us as a hilarious comedy. The biggest and best surprise of the film is the radiant performance of Rebecca Hall. Many of us remember the way she dominated the British television mini-series 'The Camomile Lawn', as a child of about ten, stealing the scenes from many famous adult actors. Now she has become a big girl (indeed, surprisingly tall), and her childlike charm has been preserved as in amber, inside a sensitive adult persona, giving an irresistible mixture of inner innocence and outer 'seen it all' confidence which she has created for herself as an exterior protective layer. Woody Allen has always had a genius for bringing the best out of women in his movies. Some of the most memorable and glowing female performances in cinema history are to be found in his movies. I would rate that as his greatest gift to us, exceeding even his comedy and his pathos. In this film, two other splendid actresses also excel. Once again, we see an incredibly incisive and intuitive performance by Scarlett Johansson, this time as a girl who doesn't know what she wants, but only knows what she doesn't want, and isn't too sure about that either. By getting inside this character, Johansson shows us the inner vacuity of the girl, who is a kind of charming village idiot who wanders the world, beautiful, alluring, and passionate, and about as clued up as an old boot. This character relates to Rebecca Hall's ordered and sensible girl in a sublime symbiosis. Into this heady mix comes the other gal: Penelope Cruz at her fieriest and most intensely Spanish, ranting, raving, loving, hating, cursing, firing pistols, sobbing, collapsing, springing up and having another go, - it is all so magnificent. The man they all dance round is Javier Bardem, a narcissistic painter lacking in real talent, who cannot help himself, but remains a serial seducer even while telling all the girls he loves Penelope, when she isn't trying to kill him, that is. How did a man of Woody Allen's age write anything so wildly passionate as this? And direct it so successfully? Inside some older guys there is a teenager full of testosterone struggling to burst out: and he does! This film has so much energy and passion, you would think it had been made by someone in his twenties. And it helps that Hall and Johansson are at their very peak of attraction and allure just now, all of which is brought out by that magician, Woody Allen