Hollywood Ending is not as good as it could have been given its premise - but it is still an entertaining movie. That might sound contradictory, but it’s certainly not meant to. I enjoyed this film when I saw it in the theatre, and I enjoyed it again recently on DVD. It’s escapist, and funny enough to warrant both a repeat viewing and a recommendation to Allen fans. In the film, Allen plays Val Waxman, a director who was considered a great artist once upon a time but has fallen out of Hollywood’s good graces with a string of flops and a set of eccentricities no sane producer would want to hire in to (think Peter Bogdonovich, who is referenced hilariously in one of the film’s better lines). As the film starts, Waxman is in Canada shooting a deodorant commercial and miserable as all hell. Somehow, he manages to mess even that assignment up. He’s fired the next day.
Waxman has a rather bizarre new champion in Hollywood though, in the form of his ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni). Now working for – and engaged to – Hal, the head of a major studio (Treat Williams), she is convinced that Waxman is ready for a comeback, and that a hot new script that has come into her hands, The City that Never Sleeps is just the kind of picture he was born to direct. It takes a bit of convincing, obviously, but she manages to land Val the job. Needless to say, Waxman is a bit confused by the circumstances. Seeing as how Ellie had left him and their marriage for Hal several years back, it seems a bit strange to him that she would now be back in his life, offering him a chance at a comeback. He hesitantly agrees to a meeting, likes the script, has a drink with Ellie (easily one of the film’s best scenes) and decides to do it. They immediately move into pre-production. Everyone becomes caught up in the enthusiasm – and Waxman even manages to finagle a lesser role for his actress/girlfriend (a superb, but underused Debra Messing) who, of course, refuses to take acting lessons: she’s a natural, you see, classes would ‘ruin’ her. Everything is in place, Waxman is set to make his comeback and Ellie set to produce her first hit film.
And then he wakes up on the morning of the shoot’s first day. He has gone blind. Psychosomatically.
His agent Al (a great turn from director Mark Rydell) convinces him to do the picture any way, stating quite rightly that, should he back out due to psychosomatic blindness, he would most definitely never work in movies again, given his troubled track record. Besides, if it’s not an actual physically caused blindness, it has to go away, right? So it is with this most vague of excuses that Waxman decides not to admit his blindness, and to let his agent act as his liason – and co-conspirator – while he attempts to direct the film without being able to see a damned thing.
And there you have it, the plot upon which the remainder of the movie hangs. Personally, I thought the set-up was wonderful, classic Allen material – but was a bit underwhelmed by the payoffs. He uses the blind director scenario as a jumping off point for several sight gags and clever one-liners, but he never takes it deeper than surface level. Sure, I was laughing, but knowing Allen’s work, I was hoping he’d take it to another level and he never really does. So maybe it’s my fault then, for expecting too much from a guy just trying to get some laughs at the hands of the studio system in Hollywood (though, to be fair, he doesn’t bite the hand that feeds him too hard). As one would expect, there are several instantly quotable quips from Allen in the film, and, for the first time in quite a while he has found an actress that he actually has chemistry with onscreen (though not necessarily sexual) in Ms. Tea Leoni. But in the end, that only stretches so far, as does the plot itself. And though the end is a classic bit of comedy – and partially explains why Allen took this film to the Cannes Film Festival (the first time he’s ever appeared at the Festival, in a country which loves him dearly) – the film ends up just being entertaining and nothing more. Which isn’t a crime.
Release Date: May 3, 2002
Domestic Total Gross: $4,850,753
Distributor: DreamWorks