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Review: 'Melinda and Melinda' hit and miss

Woody Allen movie attempts balancing act

By Paul Clinton
For CNN.com

Melinda
Will Ferrell and Radha Mitchell in "Melinda and Melinda."
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Review
Woody Allen
Will Ferrell

As is the case with many longtime Woody Allen fans, I approach his annual film with a combination of high hopes and a heavy heart. His movies in recent years -- to put it mildly -- have been wildly uneven.

His latest effort, "Melinda and Melinda," is his best in awhile, but still pales next to his brilliant films of the 1970s and part of the '90s.

It also helps that Allen -- who is pushing 70 -- didn't cast himself in the film opposite some girl barely out of her teens.

As usual, the story is set in New York City and is populated with overly urbane, highly intellectual and utterly sophisticated New Yorkers. You know the type: people whose idea of a grilled cheese sandwich is melted brie with sun-dried tomatoes on ciabatta bread.

The film opens with four people, two of whom -- Sy (Wallace Shawn) and Max (Larry Pine) -- are playwrights, dining one rainy night at an Upper East Side restaurant. Their after-dinner discussion drifts into a debate about whether the essence of life is comic or tragic.

When one of the non-playwrights at the table tells an anecdote about a woman named Melinda who stumbles unexpectedly into a private dinner party, the two writers each spin a separate tale about what happens next. One is comic, the other is dramatic.

Each story begins with that dinner party and has its own cast of characters, the only common denominator being Melinda. She is played magnificently by Australian-born actress Radha Mitchell, last seen portraying Johnny Depp's frigid wife in "Finding Neverland."

Both stories, however, cover the same themes common to Allen's films: morality, intimacy, jealousy, neurosis and romantic love. And, as usual, all this takes place in amazingly beautiful or unique living spaces that most New Yorkers never come close to visiting, let alone actually occupying.

Each scenario features a married couple whose lives are deeply affected by their relationship with Melinda.

In the dramatic storyline the husband and wife are played by Chloe Sevigny ("Boys Don't Cry") and British-born actor Jonny Lee Miller (best known for his roles in "Hackers" and "Trainspotting" and for being the first husband of Angelina Jolie).

The comedic leads are played to great effect by Amanda Peet ("Identity," "The Whole Nine Yards") and Will Ferrell (playing Allen's surrogate character in the film).

Past Allen surrogates have included John Cusack ("Bullets Over Broadway") and Jason Biggs ("Anything Else"), both of who more or less tried to channel Allen with varying degrees of success.

However, Ferrell makes the character completely his own and provides the film with its most hilarious moments. The range of expressions crossing his face in a scene where he finds his wife in bed with another man is worth the price of admission.

Melinda
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Radha Mitchell get together in "Melinda and Melinda."

As is often the case with Woody Allen films, the movie offers a rather large ensemble cast. Brooke Smith, Josh Brolin, and Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things" all do terrific supporting work.

"Melinda and Melinda" is a very adult, intelligent film chock-full of Allen's trademarks, including an idyllic portrayal of New York City. But the film is uneven; the comedic portion works best by far. The characters in the dramatic story are uniformly unsympathetic and hard to relate to, and viewers are left waiting for the comedic portions to start again.

Moreover, Allen fails to draw a sharp enough line between his two styles. At times it was difficult to tell if the film was in one mode or the other unless Ferrell was in the scene. If that was Allen's point, it doesn't come off.

But even at Allen's worst -- and this is far from his worst -- most Allen films are worth checking out. "Melinda and Melinda" does have its faults, but it's plainly the work of a master filmmaker.


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