At least a dozen other Woody Allen movies could be titled Irrational Man. Allen’s men (and his women, for that matter) are constantly falling in love with those they shouldn’t. Either she’s married (or otherwise seriously attached) or he is. Love’s irrationality is Allen’s meat. It’s as essential to his films as the lights, the cameras and the old jazz music. Allen kills committed relationships in his movies like Friday the 13th kills teenagers. That’s part of this story of a philosophy professor, new to a cozy ocean side Rhode Island college, who’s got a serious case of been-there done-that malaise. Kant and Kierkegaard have long stopped answering his questions about life so he’s started to search for it in a flask of single malt scotch and a few impotent stabs at sex. Too smart for cheap platitudes and too jaded for simple pleasures, he no longer cares if he lives or dies… UNTIL he finally finds something new to get excited about. The good news is that it brightens him up, makes him lay off the booze, enjoy life and achieve erections like a champ. The bad news is that it involves murder. This is a Woody Allen murder though, which means that the dead body is less a doorway to suspense and more a platform for Dostoyevsky-style moral questions. I don’t know about you, but Joaquin Phoenix always seems like he’s full of shit to me, which makes him perfect for the role of our troubled academic. Allen seems to relate to his doom and gloom, but doesn’t stand by his choices (notice the shot where Allen prominently positions a copy of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot next to Phoenix like it’s a signpost). Meanwhile, an icy-pale but charming Emma Stone (in her second film for Allen) is the bright college girl who’s at first seduced by Phoenix’s darkness, but knows when he’s gone too far. The film’s essential spice though is Parker Posey, as fetching as ever in her 40s, in a small part as a sassy, been-around-the-block professor who’s smarter than even she realizes. How Allen hasn’t worked with her before, I don’t know. She’s exactly the sort of urban woman who can hold her own and make sparks fly among Allen’s chatty intellectuals. The good news is that she’s in his next movie, too.