In the 90s, Woody Allen made his two darkest, most caustic anti-romantic comedies, Husbands and Wives and this. The once-likable neurotic is now a creepy old man and Allen’s fine with that as long as he gets to be as bitter as he wants and still fondle Elizabeth Shue (can’t say that I blame him). He plays his most repellent character ever here, a novelist addicted to pills, alcohol, sex and himself. In Woody Allen films, everyone cheats on their relationship. We expect it. It’s his storytelling obsession. Allen typically even defends the cheater.
Not so in this film, in which Allen slices open the lead character with a razor and shows us his selfish heart. Allen’s Harry Block cheats just to cheat. It fills up a big, sad void. He’ll cheat on his wife with her sister and then cheat on her to chase after a beautiful fan. He has no restraint, no empathy and no capacity to love. Even Allen’s usual wisecracks dare to be more weasel-y than funny. He lies, attempts to justify the unjustifiable, treats everyone like shit and expects to be loved for it. He’s disturbed and miserable. He’s probably going to die alone someday. His only redemption: He’s a good writer, especially when using the lives of everyone around him for material.
This is dangerous territory for Allen to tread, considering that he, unique among filmmakers, so often sees his films interpreted as self-portraits. The real inspiration here though is likely Philip Roth, who’s covered the same subject matter in his fiction and gotten the same accusations of being a self-hating Jew. Also, Harry Block’s short stories dramatized throughout the film (star-studded moments of levity amidst the harsh material—and essential ingredients of this film’s power) are perfectly oddball glimpses at human foibles that would sit pretty next to Roth’s “The Conversion of The Jews” and “Defenders of the Faith”.
Meanwhile, the actors here are top notch. The great Judy Davis, in particular, is a minefield of misery that explodes every time she’s on screen.
When this came out on Christmas 1997, I left the theater glowing so much off this film’s fast-paced invention—it’s a marvel how many ideas this film contains in a mere ninety-five minutes—that I went back again the next night. Almost twenty years later, I showed it to a friend, hyping it to her as my favorite Woody Allen comedy.
An exact quote of her response: “That wasn’t a comedy at all. That was really depressing.”
I didn’t have much of an argument.