i can hear the question already .
what on earth do these two movies have in common ?
to most people , not a lot , except that both are by renowned directors .
as i saw them , however , both movies have flawed romantic scripts wrapped in distinctive packaging of lavish visuals musical numbers .
but oh , how differently the packages affect their films .
while " everyone 's " production numbers make an otherwise ordinary woody tale something special , jane campion 's imaginative visuals only serve to emphasize how pompous and uninvolving laura jones ' script is .
i left " everyone says i love you " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , but its infectious happiness put a grin on my face .
i left " the portrait of a lady " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , and i could have cared less .
" everyone " features nothing allen has n't done before storywise .
woody is again desperately in love with a beautiful woman ( roberts ) , and against the odds they manage to click for awhile before allen is left wondering what went wrong -- again .
similar situations happen to his family and friends .
some of the more outlandish comedy scenes even hark back to his " early , funny " films .
the scenes between tim roth and drew barrymore could have come out of " take the money and run , " his directorial debut .
however , nothing allen has ever done prepared me for this one - of - a - kind display of sheer good spirits .
in fact , in this movie , the feeling itself is what 's most important .
yes , the movie would have been better -- among his very best , i think -- if it had a meatier story .
but what it lacks in substance it makes up for in feeling .
and what better way to express feeling than through music ?
love is often best expressed in a song , and the numbers the cast break into here cut straight to the heart .
some are a tad too goofy , such as the number where a lot of ghosts prance around in a funeral parlor ,
but i admired allen for even putting them in there .
it also helps that as usual , allen has a top - flight cast working with him .
their singing voices range from quite good ( goldie hawn ) to not quite good ( allen ) to literally unlistenable ( barrymore , whose real voice was dubbed by a professional ) .
but while their vocal abilities differ , all the actors do a great job of putting joy up there on the screen , and making it rub off on the audience .
granted , some people will simply never accept characters singing in movies , but for those attuned to it , this film should work wonders .
jane campion , too , has a top - flight cast working for her in " portrait of a lady , " too , but even their considerable skills can do nothing to keep the film from being a stilted , virtually lifeless mess ,
albeit a visually interesting one . campion and her cinematographer stuart dryburgh come up with a great variety of eye - filling images that linger in the mind .
unfortunately , what did n't linger in the mind for me
was the story the visuals were supposed to be reflecting .
i remember very well shots of a train with its light beaming and shots of men vanishing around nicole kidman , but i can remember very little of what happened between all these people .
even worse , i do n't find myself feeling bad that i 've forgotten .
the problem , i think , lies not with the cast , which seemed to be trying very hard for the material .
it was the script that could n't convince me to care about anyone .
the characters were putting out all kinds of emotion , but i found no reason to connect with any of them .
i understood that the story was about cold , emotionally vacant characters , but for me to care about them , i have to identify with them somehow and want them to inject feeling into their lives .
jones ' script never simply gave me that opportunity .
in the end , it almost seemed as if campion was trying to inject some life of her own into the proceedings with her visual flourishes . unfortunately , as she kept painting these dazzling pictures , they only served to push me further away from the material and remind me that there was no connection between me and the film .
in the end , the movie 's one strength ended up hurting it .
so here we have two films with pretty uninteresting plots , and
yet i was able to truly enjoy one of them .
why ?
with both films , my head cared about neither story , but
only " everyone says i love you " was able to make my heart sing .
Output: P