Woody Allen continues his life-long love affair with the Big Apple in his latest film, A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK – and before we continue, you can be sure than anything written here will only be a point of reference rather than a reason, simply because the Allen filmic style is so ingrained on cinema history over the decades, with a built-in following of afficionados and fans who will no doubt with this film be as determined to see what he has done here.
With the likes of ANNIE HALL, BANANAS, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, MANHATTAN, MATCH POINT and SHADOWS AND FOG to name but several, the critical view can effectively be ignored at this point in his career, because of the brand he has created – and you can sense the core following will be as interested as ever.
From the get-go, A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK has all the trademarks of a traditional Allen film – the same type-face opening and closing credits, the jazz soundtrack score (echoing his own love affair and his Monday nights playing jazz at a club preferred to attending the Oscar ceremony when nominated), the ensemble cast of name actors and the trademark narration used to reflect the mindset of his main character.
The title suggests the time frame of the film, which mixes characters and neuroses in classic Allen fashion. Gatsby (Timothee Chamalet) is a Yardley student in town with girlfriend Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), who works on the college newspaper and has an interview in downtown Manhattan with troubled film-maker Roland ‘Rolly’ Pollard (Liev Schreiber) who is about to retire when his latest film proves to be more than a headache than usual.
Ashleigh takes up Rolly’s offer of an exclusive screening of the film, putting her own plans with Gatsby in jeopardy when her schedule expands to include the film, where she meets Rolly’s screenwriter, Ted Davidoff (Jude Law). When Rolly goes AWOL, Ashleigh and Ted have to look for him, but discover Ted’s wife is playing away….
Understandably perturbed Gatsby – who is planning to attend an event with his parents later on in the day – bumps into an old school friend now studying film-making at NYU and invites him to take part in a scene in his latest film project, where he has to kiss the sister of an ex, Chan (Selena Gomez), who berates him for his manner. The scene is set for a whole load of other conflicts….
As you can guess, this is about as typical an Allen work as you can expect, predictable right down to the nuances of the characterisations, which seem to be extensions of Allen’s own characters which we have seen in many of his earlier classic films from the 1970s and 1980s.
The predictability and safety of what he has created here doesn’t give it the level of iconic status like ANNIE HALL or MANHATTAN, or even some of his very funny earlier works like BANANAS and LOVE AND DEATH. Predictably, you can also anticipate that fans – and that includes us – will enjoy it for what it is, competent if not truly classic.
Allen fans need not worry about him losing his touch.
