An Open Letter to Woody Allen

Rating: 4/10 (27 August 2008)

Dear Mr. Allen: While I struggled to watch your movie, which cost me a certain amount of money and time, I could not help but arrive at this thought: maybe it is time for you to retire. I don't say this lightly. After all, you are fully entitled to continue pursuing your career but if you do, try not to duplicate this ponderous, pretentious clunker that was trying to make some kind of statement about people and relationships and life, but winds up just feeding the audience a bunch of pseudo-philosophical mush. If you're going to tell a story, at least try to make it interesting and ease off on the use of narratives. The characters in this story are uninteresting, uninspiring and unlikable and if you were trying to create another Sideways for women, it does not work. Your movie lacks the freshness and zest that made Sideways so wonderful. Relationships come and go, people are fickle and confused and are chronically wanting more to fill in the emptiness. We already know that and you don't have you take it upon yourself to try to drive these points home because frankly who can like a movie that goes out of its way to make people feel sad.
Also, your movie deals with issues such as marital infidelity, mental illness, cultural conflict and anger but does so in such a heavy-handed and pedestrian way that by the time the movie is over ... and in this movie time drags ... nothing has been resolved, everything is a mess, the characters go on with their lives and the conflicts persist. The American men are portrayed as vacuous wimps, the Spanish man as a cloddish fool, his ex-wife as a shrieking banshee and the American women as weak, suggestive dummies. Wow, what a movie! So Mr. Allen, please don't make another movie like this. Do a remake of Play It Again Sam instead.
By the way, your movie causes me to wonder whether you ever watched the movie For Whom The Bells Toll with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. This movie is also set in Spain but unlike your movie, the characters, especially the women, are strong and resourceful. Or let's contrast the mushy characters in your movie with those found in Double Indemnity or Mildred Pierce. Mr. Allen, please ... Please ... PLEASE do not make another movie like Vicky Christina Barcelona. All you are doing is perpetuating groundless stereotypes that are not funny.