Husbands and Wives
She’s a great actress, but her voice just makes her into the exact opposite of Diane Keaton, whose “La-dee-dah” is the most important detail of her character.
I think it’s impressive that Woody Allen tends to use young girls as the most refined, interesting and mature characters. This was even more the case for Muriel Hemingway’s character in “Manhattan”, but in this movie we are also dealing with a very positive picture of a young woman. I’m impressed. Personally I actually preferred the “cocktail waitress” Sam who never did anyone harm in the whole story but just didn’t fit into the whole intelligentsia picture at all. To some degree, I understand how a certain degree of sophisticatedness is necessary in a relationship, but it just means that he shouldn’t take her to dinner parties that’s all.
All in all, this movie seems to suffer from the comparison with Woody Allen’s most brilliant love comedies which are “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”. But then again, even “Deconstructing Harry” was much funnier than this movie is, because it showed a much more desperate Woody Allen who was even more of an asshole than he is in this movie. Here, he is of course attracted to that young girl but he’s not his usual Don Juan, and especially not as black as he usually is. Even more so, he criticizes himself more harshly than he even does in “Manhattan”.
While every single other relationship comedy by Woody Allen, I end up crushed and question my own relationships every single time. It is very noteable how my views on “Annie Hall” vs. “Manhattan” changed – while I used to like “Manhattan” much more when I saw it the first time, I have to admit that “Annie Hall” is even more sophisticated, funny and well acted. Today, I wouldn’t doubt that “Annie Hall” is Woody Allen’s all time masterpiece. The fact that my own relationship life has changed might play a role, but when I read “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, I feel exactly the same as 5 years ago, except that I don’t see myself nor any of my ‘lovers’ as remotely similar to the characters in the book anymore.
“Husbands and Wives” feels simplistic compared to Woody Allen’s other works, which is perhaps also because you don’t see the characters interact as much or not as deeply. Their dialogues feels less funny but also less meaningful to me, and I keep feeling like I have seen through Woody Allen. Now I am glad that Woody Allen has grown out of the stage where he makes talkative love comedies that aren’t actually all that funny. I think that his new style of handling love comedies is extremely well done with “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”. He needs more scene of men walking up to two women saying “I would like to make love with the two of you”. By the way, I can’t wait to see “Whatever Works”.