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Rating: Timeless, incorrigible Woody. Two years of waiting for a film are an eternity for those who are fond of him and know his swift timing. These two years were not due to delays in filming or writing. The film has been ready for a while. And finally, it has arrived, thankfully. And I say this as a censor of many of his later works. It has arrived here, not in America, where the puritanical fury blows fiercely.
A film that somewhat echoes Polanski's work, in a duet of freedom and intellectual strength that annihilates the watchdogs of propriety, who bark on command (including several actors in the film itself, who donated their salaries to charity). And when the public opinion shouts, the astute filmmaker responds through his art. Allen does so with the lightness of someone who glides over things from above, addressing significant topics with an enviable lightheartedness, without fearing to prod anyone.
An act of freedom, talking about public opinion, success, cinema, sex and rumors, factual and media truths. But it does so through a youthful lens, through the love story of two twenty-year-olds. A recovery of virginity. They are somewhat the same topics that have shackled and silenced the director for an "unfounded" accusation from 1992. And it is wonderful that the very censored film speaks - obliquely - of that cultural climate and the world that led to reviving the accusations against the old womanizer Allen.
He does not defend himself armed. On the contrary, he opens up, recounting the world of New York and cinema's insidiousness, with ruthless clarity. There's the alcoholic director, the insecure one betrayed by his wife. Or the actor hungry for young flesh. All reach out for the young immaculate one, but their erotic tension is only a part of an existential journey and is difficult to trivialize. Also because often it’s the girl who insists on knowing more about that world. "It's a bit more complicated," could be the director’s response to those who accuse him of being a half-maniac.
At the end of the story, it almost seems like "nothing happened," because in the perfect mechanism, every moment could represent the entire life and soon after become completely insignificant. The search for truth passes through strong and vivid words, yet at the same time, they are misleading. Words hold value only to a certain extent. They are clouds of smoke without a precise logic. The truth cannot be a unilateral act; its search cannot work on the first try. It is a cumbersome approximation full of setbacks. Full of distortions. And then, there's always the fatal manipulation of the media.
The slimy figures of cinema are highlighted from the perspective of the young prey from the suburbs, the enchanting Elle Falling. But are the predators truly so mean? Or does the prey offer herself to them? The dynamics are complicated. The naive (and then malicious) curiosity of the young woman triggers the compliance of these degraded men. Both conditions coexist as they approach the "patatrac."
A fun meta-cinematic and meta-biographical game for a bad boy who, at 84, continues to be passionate about cinema and life. And that boy is still on stage, even if it can no longer be Allen himself.
Thus, there's an effort for a partially successful generational translation, as Timothée Chalamet is a Woody still needing refinement. But the attempt to give a new and young voice to his hypertrophic ego is appreciable. A young ego, who gets almost everything wrong and receives a colossal lesson from his mother. Woody the slimy filmmaker, Woody the rebellious boy. Everything and its opposite. As long as the cinema carousel never stops, as long as there is strength to live, there is strength to make films.
A memorable film also and especially for how it dialogues with its author's current events. In itself, it has a liveliness in writing that is even excessive. Sometimes the script is "overwritten," and the young actors can't keep up, losing pieces along the way. Exquisite is the direction that prefers still shots and slow movements, perspective games where the malice of poses and the language of gestures always emerge clearly. The rain is not only outside on the streets but inside, in the tumultuous hearts of two young lovers on a "trip" to New York.
Admirable is the unity of space and time, a display of mastery that flies light but carries heavy loads. Light as the student journalist's flight among the romantic dreams of disillusioned directors and actors. Frivolous as her knowledge of cinema, self-referential and vain. Heavy as the step of her abandoned boyfriend, who is recalcitrant and rebellious but perhaps only for the sake of being so, also a bit superficial in dispensing judgments.
Allen, telling his detractors that "it's a bit more complicated," does not hide his weaknesses and contradictions. On the contrary: he amplifies them, makes them a central theme, leaving his voice to an immature boy. And in the end, it is that boy who will choose to dive back into New York neuroses, feeding himself to the lions once more.
Welcome back, Woody.
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