MELINDA AND MELINDA
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Woody Allen shows us how the same
inspiration can inspire either a comedy or a
tragic love story. We see the creative process
at work as a comedy director creates a comic
story and a more serious director takes the
original story in the direction of tragedy.
The only trouble is that occasionally we cannot
tell which is the comic and which is the tragic
story and neither story is particularly engaging.
This is more an interesting idea for a film than
an interesting film. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4)
or 5/10

More so than with any other director, when Woody Allen makes a
new film I feel compelled to put the new film on the curve of
Allen's career and see how this film stacks up against his recent
films. That is because after CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS Allen seems
to have stopped making films for his audiences. Certainly his
films have been much less audience pleasers. Most people I know
have at least one film they like from this last period, but there
is no consensus that any of his films have been good. I
moderately enjoyed BULLETS OVER BROADWAY and ANYTHING ELSE. But
Allen's films are no longer reliably good and some have been
quite bad. MELINDA AND MELINDA is being acclaimed as Allen's
return to greatness, but I just do not see greatness in this
film.

The concept is the best thing about MELINDA AND MELINDA. Two
successful film directors are having dinner at a fancy restaurant
with some of their friends. Sy (played by Wallace Shawn) is
known for his bright comedies. Max (Larry Pine) makes films that
are tragic looks at life. A friend tells a story that we do not
hear. Each of the directors tells what he would do if he were
adapting this story as a film. We see the two stories play out
using elements from the unheard story in different ways. Each
story tells of how Melinda (Radha Mitchell) arrives unexpectedly
from out of town to visit her friend. The two sub-films have
different characters and tell nearly different stories, though
each has Melinda as a character, and in each Mitchell plays her.
Each tells how she is the catalyst to ruin the relationship of
her friend, her friend's husband, and two of their friends. The
relationships do go wrong, but so does the film because each of
the stories is not engaging and fails to make us care for the
characters.

We are distanced from the characters because the two filmmakers,
who obviously represent two sides of Allen's personality, use
much the same style for their films. Speaking for myself it is
not a style that works well. Part of the problem is that most of
the action of the film is not shown to us but we are told. The
sex scenes we do get to see, but most of the rest of the scenes
consist of characters getting together and discussing what is
happening in their lives. The film tells us far too much and
shows us far too little. And because we do not see much of the
characters in action, we do not know who they are. And not
knowing who they are we do not care much about what happens to
them. And when Allen fails to involve us in the characters we do
not really who ends up bedding whom. It all seems like gossip
about people we do not know. Ironically, the film shows us a
small piece of Edgar Ulmer's THE BLACK CAT. This is a film in
which the major action took place years before and there are
plenty of scenes of talking about the past. But the interest
never flags because there is plenty of action in the present,
unlike in MELINDA AND MELINDA. As an aside, I think THE BLACK
CAT is an under-appreciated gem of delightfully morbid black
comedy. It may be the best film of Universal's creative period
from 1930 to 1935.

Woody Allen's screen personality always seems to be present in
his films even if he himself is only behind the camera. Here the
Woody Allen figure is Hobie (Will Ferrell) who in spite of very
different physical stature has the Allen patented personality and
mannerisms. Some of the other characters do not seem human at
all. Who do you know who would say "Life has a funny way of
dealing with great potential" or "My sad tale should come from my
lips"? That is another reason it is hard to get into these
characters' lives and care who is getting into each other's beds.
For my money this is another Allen misfire. I rate it a low +1
on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.

Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper