Reviewer Roundup |
1. |
 | Andrew Hicks |
 | review follows |
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2. |
| Brian Koller |
| read the review |
|     |
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Review by Andrew Hicks
3½ stars out of 4
On the surface, this Woody Allen follow-up to the
masterpiece ANNIE HALL seems like the same movie all over again.
There he is, playing a neurotic New York Jew whose career involves
entertaining the masses with his sense of humor and whose love life
involves a continual string of mismatches and failures. After watching
MANHATTAN, though, it's obvious this film explores the theme on a
much more dramatic and profound level.
Aesthetically, MANHATTAN is worlds away from ANNIE
HALL. Filmed in black and white and featuring a constant soundtrack
of Gershwin music, it seems like an artsy 50's film, but then again no
film of the 50's ever had a seventeen-year-old girl offering a
middle-aged man a chance to have sex in a wild way no other
woman would try with him. That brings up the third difference
between MANHATTAN and ANNIE HALL -- we get to see the
charming pedophile side of Woody in this film as he enters a
relationship with high school senior Mariel Hemingway. The
mental image of those two together is almost as disgusting
as Mariel's lesbian kiss with Roseanne. Almost.
Mariel is in love with Woody, but he continually tells her
she's too young for commitment. She needs to have more casual
sex relationships with insensitive jocks before settling down with
one man (the same advice Madonna's parents gave her at the age
of seven). So he takes up with emotionally unstable Diane Keaton
(a.k.a. Annie Hall), who is on the rebound from an extra-marital affair
with a mutual friend (Michael Murphy) but is eventually lured back
into the affair when Murphy promises for the millionth time to leave
his wife. Looks like someone needs to rent WAITING TO EXHALE.
Like most Woody Allen films, MANHATTAN is a melange of
relationships gone wrong, only here there are less rapid-fire one-liners
and more actual drama. Emotional damage occurs right and left in
MANHATTAN and, while it isn't as funny as ANNIE HALL , it's just
as rewarding a viewing experience on a different level. And it does
expose Woody's charming pedophile side so rarely seen outside of
custody trials.
Copyright © 1996 Andrew Hicks
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