Still seems that Woody is running on empty....

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2008)

Nothing that Woody Allen does in the rest of his career is going to alter that fact that he will be regarded as one of the greatest American directors of all time - one of a mere handful who have presented a unique world-view in their films.... However, our wonderful, wonderful Woody has seemed to be on a decline for some time... certainly since 'Deconstructing Harry' and perhaps before...
And yet every new Woody movie contains real insight into the human condition, it's just that he doesn't seem to be bothered to wrap them up in the near perfect packages that we saw in 'Manhattan', 'Hannah' and 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'.
Here we have a case in point. Love and responsibility is the subject - it is in all of Woody's best films. Vicky is conventional and reserved, Cristina is flighty and adventurous... But hey! Cupid can soon start turning things around...
It was one of the great disappointments of the latter half of Fellini's career that, for the most part - even just after 'Giulietta degli Spiriti' - he seemed to forget about the rigour of script-writing and narrative expression. It was as if her was saying 'people will come to see a Fellini film even if I don't bother my head too much.' It was the same with Godard - only for very different reasons. I wonder if, perhaps, Woody has got tired of all of the effort needed to hone his ideas into the near-perfect packages of earlier times. It could be that the title of his new film 'Whatever Works' - is a signal that the search for perfection has been replaced for the search for 'whatever works'.
As has been noted in an interesting thread on the board for this film, one of the main problems with this film is the narration. This is strange, as Woody can turn voice-over narration into pure gold (think of his poignant narration for 'Annie Hall'), perhaps, the real problem is that it isn't Woody who is narrating... it is some faceless narrator with a smug voice.
For me Woody is the comic Shakespeare of our age. I do so hope that he has a 'Winter's Tale' or a 'The Tempest' left in him... Regrettably this isn't it... even though it knocks spots off the awful 'Cassandra's Dream'.