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Poster (c) Dreamworks Pictures
Although I haven’t seen all of his earlier work, I consider myself to be as big of a Woody Allen fan as the next. I haven’t been blown away by his recent attempts, but I didn’t hate them, and found them (especially Hollywood Ending) funny and amusing, which is basically what his most recent movie, Anything Else, is. It’s nothing new or groundbreaking, nothing setting a precedent for other movies to follow like some of Allen’s golden movies. It’s just a pleasant way to spend two hours.
Allen’s fatal mistake, however, was to let Dreamworks bill Anything Else as a teen comedy, with names like Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci filling up the poster. It’s anything but. It stars teen comedy actors, but the relationship is nowhere near what most teen comedies depict them to be: it’s more than just sex. It’s not even that romantic, just a comedy. Also, teens wouldn’t be attracted to anything with Woody Allen in it, although they should be.
Jerry Falk (Biggs) is an aspiring comedy writer who lives with his odd girlfriend Amanda (Ricci), who is an aspiring actress. Falk meets with teacher-turned-part-time-comedy-writer David Dobel (Allen), who gives him alternately advice and one-lines (my favorite has to be Dobel talking about quantum physics: “So space and time is the same thing? If you ask someone what time it is, they’ll say ‘six miles’?”). In addition, his shrink won’t help Falk at all. Amanda won’t have sex with Falk for an unknown reason, leaving him even more frustrated.
Just as often as Anything Else pops to life, it sizzles back down to mediocrity. There are some true times of hilarity, but often there are ten minute laughless stretches. What Allen has trouble with doing in his recent movies is keeping the laughs at a regular pace and making sure that his one-liners (which are usually great) keep in line with the plot. As I mentioned, the jokes come in at random times, and the one-liners are well placed.
It seems like Allen relied less on situational comedy for this movie. There was one scene in particular where everything just “happened” for comedy (when Amanda and her mother [Stockard Channing] walk in on Falk and Dobel practicing Falk’s new rifle), but that was about it. It had a completely different feel from Hollywood Ending. I also thought that the cinematography was almost too good for a silly comedy like this one. Many scenes were one take, and it made the movie feel almost like a play instead of a movie. That I really liked about this movie.
Biggs was extremely good in his role: he wasn’t great at his acting, but he was exactly like a younger Woody Allen in all of his mannerisms and his neuroticisms. Ricci did a great job, too, as the over-the-top girlfriend. Speaking of over-the-top, Channing does great in her over-the-top role. Allen is adequate, but, to tell the truth, I wanted more of him then the love story between Biggs and Ricci. He seemed a little different from the other characters he played.
Anything Else is just like any recent Woody Allen comedy: opens to mixed reviews, leaves theaters in a few weeks and makes a small debut on DVD soon after. It’s nothing new.
Rated R for a scene of drug use and some sexual references.
Review Date: October 4, 2003