MOVIE REVIEW

Anything Else  (2003)

Starring: Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Woody Allen
Director: Woody Allen

Rating: R

Studio: DreamWorks SKG

Release Date: 9.19.03

Review Posted: 9.19.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

Looking for "Anything Else" but Woody’s Latest

There is a common perception among many that DreamWorks doesn’t want you to know that the new romantic comedy with Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci hitting theaters today is written and directed by the great Woody Allen. They are hiding that fact from you, sensing that the aging auteur has lost touch with the younger generations that tend to go to movies in force.

Well, if “Anything Else” is an indication, the marketing executives over at the studio might be right. Not that the Wood-man’s latest is a complete miss - not at all. There are in fact moments of smart hilarity that rank right up there with some of the best comedic flashes put on film this year. But, as a whole, “Anything Else” comes across as warmed over Woody; an ungainly overlong highlight reel of ideas straight out of the writer/director’s past.

Most notably, this film can’t help but resemble one of his greatest, most enduring triumphs, “Annie Hall.” Both center on a love affair that’s made up of neurotic wanderings, casual sex, torrid affairs, whimsical bon mots, endless breakups (and re-couplings) and a silly doomed melancholia. This worked beautifully 26-years a go (don’t believe – check out the DVD and see for yourself just how well it holds up) and there are moments when it works just as fine here. But there is such a rote-ness to it all, a tiring sense of deja vu, that most good feelings generated by the farce evaporate vaporously into the film’s chilly New York air.

Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, two actors that have taken wildly divergent big screen paths, play the young lovers Jerry and Amanda. What’s most amazing is that it is the tiresome star of the “American Pie” trilogy that stands out, and not the extremely talented charmer most known for her work in films as diverse as “The Opposite of Sex,” “Buffalo 66” and “The Addams Family.” Struggling writer Jerry is, neuroses aside, an affable and likable presence and young Biggs shows a depth of feeling that he hasn’t displayed up to now. Even more, even though Allen’s techniques of having the actor address the audience directly – a device that worked so well in “Annie Hall” – is profoundly tired; Biggs manages the writer/director’s richly complex dialogue in a tastily refreshing manor.

Ricci, however, is fatally miscast as the prissy dilettante Amanda. She shows a boredom in her work here that the actress usually only relegates to her performances in paycheck movies like the horrid “Bless the Child.” It’s tempting to say that her and Biggs hold not a lick of onscreen chemistry, but with Ricci so obviously not even trying to develop some it’s hard to get the assessment to hold water. Only briefly during a flashback of a too-cute double date where Jerry and Amada first meet does the actress show some spark, lighting up the screen in such a way that it’s easy to see why the starry-eyed writer falls for her.

Luckily, as in most of his films, Allen stacks his cast with some seasoned pros that enliven the proceedings immensely. Most notably, Stockard Channing (“The Business of Strangers”) and Danny DeVito (“Heist”) both pop us briefly as, respectively, Amanda’s immature and selfish boozer mother Paula and Jerry’s insecure sad sack of a manager Harvey. The duo bring the movie to prickly and pointed life every time they are on screen, Allen knowing instinctively to just give them the spotlight and let them run away with it.

Surprising, Woody the actor fares far less successfully in his role as Jerry mentor and fellow comedy writer David Dobel. Dobel is a peculiar figure. At once serving time as the film’s Greek Chorus while at others proving to be a strangely histrionic motivator of the plot’s forward menstruations, he’s an absurd presence that just doesn’t seem to fit. While I like the fact, for what seems like the first time in ages, the director has resisted casting himself as a romantic lead and instead chosen to encase himself inside a supporting role, the character unfortunately consists of so many unlikable quirks and idiosyncrasies it’s rather difficult to see what Jerry finds so appealing about him.

In the end, Allen’s movie wants to stress that the point of the movie; of love, life, work, et all; is just like anything else you do during a given day – nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, all he’s proven is that like anyone else, the formerly gifted director is just as apt to make a disappointingly tired and stale motion picture as the next guy.

Rating: êê  (out of 4)

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