"Divergent", or "How To Survive the Apocalypse and Still Get to Kiss a Boy."

So this is what it looks like when the Age of Teenaged Boys in movie culture starts to ebb, and the Age of Teenaged Girls begins to rise.  One might even wonder just when this Dystopia-for-Girls fad will come to an end.  Through how many games must we go hungry, or through how many mazes must we run, before we pass puberty and get to wear black leather, get cool tattoos, hang with vampires, lose our virginity and overthrow all the fascist societies current popular fiction can throw at us?  Geez, Louise, but if Mad Max stumbled across some place like these supposedly-dystopian cultures during his wanderings after the bombs fell, he’d get disgusted pretty dang quickly and run back to Thunderdome with a smile.

Well, anyways, here comes the first installment of the latest “Young Adult” film franchise, Divergent, based on a fairly-popular recent novel by Veronica Roth.  At some point a hundred or so years in our future, after some “war” that resulted in all of the world except Chicago becoming uninhabitable (yeah, Chicago – go figure), we find what’s left of humanity all under the age of thirty (or at least it looks like the vast majority of it is – maybe this is after the Logan’s Run experiment failed) and divided into five “factions,” each of which serves a different purpose in society.  Those factions are Abnegation (the selfless servants, and the faction currently governing), Amity (the kind and charitable), Candor (the honest, mostly lawyers), Erudite (the intelligent and scholarly) and Dauntless (the brave, which in this world means the soldiers and cops, but these soldiers/cops are all into free-running for some reason).  Sadly, some folks don’t fit into any of these, and remain “faction-less” (or “bums,” as some of us might have called them).

As children reach the age of sixteen, they are tested to see if they are better-suited to remain in the faction of their birth for the remainder of their lives, or if they may have attributes that would be better put to use in another faction.  By some quirk of law, however, when the day comes for them to submit to the ceremony that assigns them to their future faction, they are free to choose ANY faction.  This testing procedure sometimes reveals a child who is “divergent,” meaning that he or she doesn’t fit into any of society’s molds, and is quickly eliminated in the interest of maintaining social order.

Along comes Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley), from an Abnegation family, who takes the test and is found to be a Divergent.  The test’s administrator risks her own life by quelching the test’s result and sending Beatrice away, swearing her to secrecy.  When her Choosing Day comes, Beatrice surprises everyone by spurning her own faction and choosing to join the Dauntless (no doubt thrilled by the “bad boys” as every sixteen-year old girl ever born is).  Renaming herself “Tris,” she struggles against hostile drill sergeants, snotty fellow initiates and her attraction to an older instructor to become worthy of the thrill-seeking Dauntlesses.

The first half of the film moves along at a good pace, and while a little over-the-top in it’s trying to be allegorical about society’s labeling folks, I didn’t find it boring.  Seeing Tris begin to come of age and find a direction for her life held my interest, and for that, plenty of praise for Shailene Woodley is merited.  All too often, mid-twenty-somethings are asked to portray teenagers, but all too often, they aren’t convincing.  I did find it easy to accept the 22-year old Woodley as the late-teenaged Beatrice, however.  The flip side to this was twenty-eight year old Theo James as Four, Tris’s instructor/paramour.  Portraying some unspecified age that I took to be along the lines of twenty-four or twenty-five, he sorta gave me the willies with his Mad-Love for the seventeen or eighteen-year old Tris.  I guess guys will still go for high school-aged chicks even after the Apocalypse.

The second half of the movie got pretty silly (for lack of a more eloquent adjective), however, as Tris learns of the Erudites’ plan to use the Dauntlesses as an unwitting army in their plot to overthrow the Abnegations.  Her failure to succumb to some mind-control serum reveals her to be a Divergent, and thanks to some incredibly well-timed intervention from her Mommy, she manages to escape her own execution and lead the team of rebels who thwart the Erudites and start the resistance movement that presumably will someday free all the huddled masses from… blah, blah, blah…

Personally, I’ve always preferred to have the protagonist of any story I’m watching or reading find his/her own way out of trouble, and it’s pretty much always a turn-off when I see a “hero” having his/her fat pulled out of the proverbial fire by some random bit of luck or some other character conveniently swooping in at the precise moment said hero is about to get whacked.  But I digress…

There are several things to like about Divergent, despite my rolling my eyes at it a bit too often to declare it a success.  Shailene Woodley is terrific in the lead role, and if there is an actress who may be Jennifer Lawrence’s spiritual twin working in movies these days, she must be it.  Lenny Kravitz’ little girl Zoe as a fellow Dauntless initiate was also captivating, and thankfully, her role never degenerated into any sort of giggly BFF-type.  Kate Winslet, however, who was most likely cast with the intention of providing enough gravitas to make audiences think of the movie as something more than teenaged-fare, didn’t have much to work with, as her part as the Erudite leader was so undeveloped that it could’ve been played by just about any other capable film actress.

Director Neil Burger manages to tell a sort of coming-of-age story in such a way that even one such as I could remain interested, and I found the visual depiction of this city sealed off from the rest of the world very impressive, but the third act of the plot really spirals down to a Bella/Edward/Jacob level of drama, which plays better to schoolgirls on the printed page than to mass audiences on film.   Burger gave us the very interesting movie The Illusionist several years ago, and more recently, the mildly popular Bradley Cooper vehicle Limitless (which I have not yet seen, but about which I have heard good things), so despite my reservations about Divergent’s source material, I had higher hopes for this than I had for The Hunger Games (and let’s face it folks – without Hunger Games, there wouldn’t be any Divergent).  

I found myself asking questions of the movie that it never answered; namely about such things as details about this “war” that left Chicago in such dang good shape, and what awful things may lie beyond the microwave tower-looking fences that now surround the city.  Such answers are never given, or even hinted, but I will assume all that is to be fodder for the already-planned sequels next year and the year after that.  I recall having much the same number of questions about the universe of The Hunger Games, with a similar lack of answers there.  With how well this movie managed to pull off the details of this world, and even create a character that interested me, it was a disappointment that it didn’t manage to find a way to tell a story that didn’t make we wonder when the post-adolescent vampires were going to show up.

"Saving Mr. Banks" won't save you from needing a tissue...

You want a tear-jerker?  John Lee Hancock can make a tear-jerker.   Oh, yeah, sure, Saving Mr. Banks is a “Disney” picture, and that fact sells a lot more tickets than Mr. Hancock’s name does, I believe in giving praise where praise is due.  Although the director’s name is not featured in any of Disney’s promotion of Saving Mr. Banks, with the aid of a well-written script and some marvelous acting by a few of the finest film actors working today, Mr. Hancock has done it again.  If you saw The Rookie (the Dennis Quaid one, not the Clint Eastwood one) a decade or so ago, or The Blind Side more recently, then you know what I mean.  

This interpretation of the story of how Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) doggedly pursued and browbeat author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) into granting him the film rights to the first of her beloved children’s books featuring the supernanny Mary Poppins.  Armed with storyboards and songs already created for the proposed movie, he and his creative team try their darndest to convince Travers that her fears of her dearest creation being corrupted are unfounded, although they seemingly fail miserably in the attempt.  We see how some of everyone’s favorite tunes from the resulting movie were created, and how Mrs. Travers did her best to passively-aggressively sabotage Disney’s team’s efforts at almost every turn.

As we follow these events, we also see flashbacks to turn-of-the-(twentieth) century Australia, and how Mrs. Travers, then a mere child of eight years, shared a very close bond with her alcoholic father (Colin Farrell), as both father and daughter were dreamers incredibly vivid imaginations.   They travel to a small hamlet off in the Australian boondocks, apparently so the father can take a new job, and he does his best to make their near-poverty as bearable as possible with all sorts of make-believe tales with his daughters, but his ever-present flask of hooch and looks of disapproval from his wife shows us that he needs something more to dull the ache of his failures.  The events of Mrs. Travers’ childhood have such influence on her dealings with the Disney folks fifty years later that the two storylines are by necessity intertwined.

Tom Hanks may be a bit beefier in the face than Old Walt was, but his mannerisms are spot-on.  He is marvelous here, but we have come to expect nothing less from him. Emma Thompson also gives an awards-worthy performance, doing her usual fantastic job of portraying the “proper” English lady with something of an attitude.  With the pedigree of these two mega-star actors, my singing their praises would not give you any information that you would not already assume before seeing the movie, so I’ll use this space to give some kudos to Colin Farrell.

I’ve long thought that Farrell is one of the more under-appreciated film actors of this generation.  His films have rarely been huge commercial successes, and his sometimes tabloid-fodder personal life may keep him from receiving more accolades than he has to date, but his performance here just reaffirms my belief in his talent, primarily making an audience sympathetic to his character.  We saw it in In Bruges, we saw it (albeit briefly) in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and even in London Boulevard (although it didn’t help that movie so much).  This movie is the high point of his career so far, in my humble opinion.

Although there are plenty of lighter moments in Saving Mr. Banks, it is a very touching story of must how much a child’s life is molded and shaped by his or her parents’ love, and how parents express that love.  The movie struck me with a notion that is probably so obvious to many of you - how grave a responsibility being a parent is; how every word spoken and action taken, especially those not even intended to be life lessons,  is absorbed by a child and used as a guideline for their own decision-making someday. P.L. Travers’ father, obviously a man who loved his children with a passion not many men may equal, used his imagination and love of tale-spinning not only to mold his daughter’s personality and set her course as a storyteller in her own right, but also as a means of getting his entire family through their difficult times.  

Of course, a movie like this could only have been made by the Disney studios.  The rights issues involved with Old Walt’s likeness alone mean that only the Mouse House could do it, but one would be hard-pressed to name another studio or production company who can create such a heart-warming tale.  If you can recall those live-action Disney films from the 60s like Follow me, Boys, or more recent ones like Invincible, then you’ll understand my meaning.  Especially touching is a scene in which Old Walt explains to Mrs. Travers that he finally understands the real meaning of Mary Poppins, and just how much it means to Mrs. Travers, and why he can be entrusted to translate that story to film faithfully.

I didn’t see Mary Poppins myself until I was over forty years of age, so while I do find it a very good movie, it has never held a very dear place in my heart.  I do accept that it does for countless others, though, so If you are one of those folks, then I believe you would enjoy this tale of how one of your favorite stories came to the silver screen. Even if you aren’t one of those people, however, you would indeed be a heartless creature if you didn’t find this lovely story as endearing as the tale of the mysterious nanny with the magical umbrella.

"American Hustle" is a tad too long on the "hustle" part...

I remember ABSCAM.  It is one my earliest memories of the “news,” when I began to realize that there was more to the world than just my home, my immediate family and my school - one that involved people I would never see or meet, yet who would still affect my life.  The FBI sting operation that resulted in the conviction of numerous congressmen and a couple of Senators on corruption charges did not necessarily have such an affect on my own little corner of the world, but it just seemed to come along at a time when I was become aware of the larger world around me.  Thus, when the teaser trailers for director David O. Russell’s follow-up to last year’s Silver Linings Playbook began to hit the web, I found myself growing very eager to see it.

While not a literal account of that minor episode of recent American history, American Hustle very accurately portrays the mindset of the times, in addition to the fashions and music of those days.  Russell brings back the principal actors from both Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro) and his previous film, The Fighter (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) as well, and once again, Russell provides these winners of oh-so-many acting awards with material that allows them to strut their stuff in world-class fashion.  If nothing else, American Hustle is a glowing example of Tour-de-Force film acting, and worth seeing on that basis, despite a few hiccups.

The story here begins with Bale portraying a New York con man who is perhaps a step or two above small-time, and Amy Adams as a smoking-hot drifter/hustler (“smoking-hot” being a phrase I don’t believe could be applied to any character she has portrayed before) whom Bale’s character meets at a party and instantly becomes smitten with, despite his being married to a bizarrely-ditzy younger wife (Jennifer Lawrence).  The Bale and Adams characters begin both an affair and a business partnership, grifting money from folks seeking loans after other, more reputable lenders have refused them.  They are eventually nabbed, however, by a low-life FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) who under threat of jail, extorts them into aiding him with a sting operation he’s running on the mayor of Camden, New Jersey (Jeremy Renner).

David O. Russell is well-known for allowing his actors to improvise as much as possible, and this method served him very well here.  The dialogue scenes certainly had a feeling of improvisation, with an energy that seemed to result from the actors not being exactly sure what was coming next, much like their characters would’ve experienced.  I suspect Jennifer Lawrence more so than the other lead actors took the liberty Russell granted the actors and ran with it, as she created an absolutely nucking futs (yes, you read that right) caricature of the Real Jersey Housewives-type as might would’ve been found thirty-five years ago.

While I enjoyed American Hustle, I couldn’t rid myself of the sense that Russell never completely decided whether to make a “heist” picture or an actual character study, so he tried to have it both ways.  The movie goes on for stretches where it seems to be building up to a “heist-picture” moment, only to jump back over to character study-mode, then give us a climax with a setup that reeks of some elaborate con-man scenario, like something out of either incarnation of The Italian Job, but doesn’t really turn out that way.

Perhaps he was trying to inject some comedy into the mix, as Jennifer Lawrence so ably provides.  Bradley Cooper’s character, for example, as well-played as it was by Cooper, is portrayed as a loud-mouthed, self-centered glory hound who is such a loser that he still lives with his mother.  Even comedian Louis C.K. surprisingly turns up as the Cooper character’s boss, and does a fine job of it.  However, Bale’s and Adams’ characters certainly don’t exhibit any satirical characteristics (well, maybe Bale’s hideous comb-over is supposed to fulfill that obligation), and since I seem to recall that all FBI agents must have law degrees, just how much of a loser could Cooper’s character possibly be?  I totally get that it’s possible to have black-comedy elements in any story, but those moments in this movie just seemed to stick out a little more than they should. 

Of course, the actual events of the ABSCAM scandal did not play out in the news the way they are portrayed here, and the first words that appear on the screen at the beginning of the movie inform us that history only provides the seed Russell used to grow this story from his own imagination, so the historical inaccuracies don’t bother me.  What did bother me, albeit slightly, was what seemed to be the inconsistent tone of the movie.  With that being said, it didn’t bother me enough to keep me from liking it.  I suppose it’s a testament to the excellent performances given by all of the lead actors that I recommend this movie, if for no other reason than to see some of the best film actors of our generation doing some fantastic work.

No one should try to defy "Gravity"

As wonderful a genre as science fiction is, 99.9% of movies made under that label lean a lot more heavily on the “fiction” part than the “science,” so it’s a rare treat when we get one that relies on some scientific fact-based scenarios to produce dramatic effect.  When pitching 2001: A Space Odyssey to MGM all those years ago, Stanley Kubrick said he wanted to produce the first “good” science-fiction film, with his definition of “good” being “believable,” as he wanted to tell a compelling story in a setting that could easily be our own world. Of course, he very famously did so, and the lack of similar efforts by other filmmakers through the years could be evidence of how difficult a task “realistic” science fiction is.

Alfonso Cauron’s Gravity, however, belongs in any discussion with Kubrick’s master-piece.  By saying such a thing, I don’t mean to imply that they are equals (2001 is such a unique film that almost anything will pale in comparison to it), but I do mean that Gravity is such an absolute technical marvel, like 2001, that its being a very good human story is like icing on the proverbial cake.

The film opens with an uninterrupted seventeen-minute take depicting a space shuttle repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.  Astronauts Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) are two members of the crew we see performing extra-vehicular activity (that’s space-walking to you and me) when NASA radios an emergency abort alert, as a field of debris from a destroyed Russian satellite is in a direct orbital path with their shuttle.  This cloud of metallic fragments travelling faster than any bullet ever could does indeed find them before they are able to change their orbital path, destroying the spacecraft and leaving Kowalski and Stone adrift in space.  What follows is an engrossing, fascinating story of loss, bravery and the discovery of a will to survive, told by Cauron in such a stunningly beautiful way that any audience member not feeling fear and anxiety, and happiness and joy, is almost certainly a fairly dark-hearted individual.  

By the end of the first act, Gravity essentially becomes a one-woman show, a story of a woman’s decision to survive, not only her current predicament, but her lonely, emotionally empty life in general.  Sandra Bullock’s performance is a statement that her Oscar win two years ago was no fluke, and I fully expect to see her name listed amongst the Best Actress nominees again come February. There are so many scenes in which she is the only character, and yet even without anyone to exchange dialogue, she conveys so much about Stone’s fear, and pain, and depression, that we know this character intimately by the time the film ends, and her fate is all the more emotionally impactful for it.

As amazing a story as Gravity is, the concept of a massive storm of orbital space debris could be the impetus for several other fascinating stories, as we could imagine how our society would react to a severe crippling of, if not outright elimination of, global telecom-munications that would result from such a scenario.  Imagine television and radio broad-casts being interrupted, international telephone calls being impossible, and internet connec-tivity being all but stopped.  Hell, the loss of world-wide Twitter access alone might be the beginning of Armageddon.  Cauron, to his credit, does not distract us from the story he chooses to tell, not even once, trusting his audience to understand how there’s a wave of chaos going on down on Earth, which makes the solitude of Bullock’s character all that much more profound.

At the risk of being repetitive, I’ll reiterate that Gravity is worth the price of admission as a visual treat alone.  Cauron’s use of computer-generated effects is extensive, but done with such great skill that not once are we under the misguided notion that we’re viewing some sci-fi space opera. Cauron’s lighting and camera movement constantly amazed me, and the moments of suspense and danger the astronauts faced got physical reactions from me that most movies can’t get out of me anymore.  Even the sound design of the film was fantastic, as we heard the radio transmissions from Earth differently when we were inside the astronauts’ helmets than we did when we were outside their suits (yes, you read that right - Cauron takes us all sorts of places in this film), and the silence of space is punctu-ated by the thuds and clunks that would be heard when the characters were in enclosed spaces with atmosphere.  

Now I did see Gravity in IMAX 3D, and yes, I’ve just raved and raved about how beautiful it was to watch, but I continue to believe this format to be a waste of a filmgoer’s money, and a lesser viewing experience than traditional two-dimensional film presentation.  With the ex-ception of Avatar, I’m yet to see a 3D film that didn’t have muddied or unbalanced colors, and I would even include Avatar when maintaining that the 3D effects have not yet added anything absolutely necessary to a story being told on-screen.  That being said, to each his own, and your tastes and experiences may differ, but I don’t think there’s really any debate needed when saying Gravity is the best picture of 2013 so far.

"The Wolverine" gives us nerds a reason to keep living.

I once read a magazine article (in OMNI Magazine, I believe, but it was so long ago that I can’t swear to that) that described a study where certain folks were hypnotized into believing themselves immortal.  The purpose of the study was to determine what behavioral changes these folks would exhibit towards those they believed to be “mere mortals.”  The surprising results were that the newfound “immortals” promptly lost all initiative to do much of anything, becoming lazier and more slothful, and pretty much turning into couch potatoes.  After all, since they now had all the time in world, what’s the big rush to get motivated and accomplish anything? 

It’s an interesting question, one of many that mankind has pondered about the possible pitfalls of immortality, and similar to the train of thought plaguing the mutant superhero Wolverine in this latest solo film for the member of the X-Men. 

Although not explicitly stated, The Wolverine appears to be a direct sequel to 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand (not that any of us were really wanting THAT cinematic experience to continue, mind you…), as the movie starts with Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, in all of his bulked-up, gym-freak glory) trying to come to grips with the losses he experienced in the second and third X-Men films.  Before finding him choosing to live alone in the wilderness after the events that concluded that film, we see via flashback how Logan was interred in a Japanese Prisoner-of-War camp just outside Nagasaki during the closing days of the Second World War, and since we all know what happened in Nagasaki that second week of August in 1945, we aren’t surprised to see Logan’s mutant healing abilities put the the ultimate test when the “Fat Man” bomb comes a-calling.  During the firestorm, he manages to save a Japanese soldier, who over the next seventy years becomes a billionaire industrialist, and never forgets the debt he owes to the mutant stranger. 

Flash forwards to the present day, and it seems Logan has come to think that immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be if it means he outlives everyone to whom he may grow emotionally attached.  He lives unsheltered in the Canadian wilderness, avoiding human contact save for an occasional visit to a small town to obtain supplies.  Out of the blue appears Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mysterious little Japanese Sprite of a girl with ninja-level swordsmanship skills who insists Logan return with her to Japan, as the man he saved from nuclear fire all those years ago is now dying and wants to see Logan one last time to offer him a gift of thanks.   That “gift” turns out to be the possibility of a way for Logan to lost his super-healing powers and become mortal, which he refuses, but soon finds his healing ability greatly reduced, if not stripped away completely, anyway.  Throw in some Japanese culture clashes, some big-business political intrigue and a bunch of ninjas, and you have all the makings of a slam-bang comic-book movie for grownups. 

Although I was surprised by the selection of director James Mangold to helm this movie when I first heard the news more than a year ago, it was certainly a welcome one.  His body of work would not necessarily make one think of him when looking for somebody to make a Superhero movie, but he has done action movies before (namely the Tom Cruise vehicle Knight and Day), and I loved Walk the Line and his remake of 3:10 to Yuma, so I had total confidence that his vision of a Wolverine movie would be nowhere near as cartoonish as the last attempt turned out to be.  Sure, this film follows the superhero-genre’s current trend of being more introspective and less bullets-and-profanity (well, except for “The Avengers,” but who am I to nit-pck?), but the big action set-pieces here are definitely exciting and do serve to propel the story, not interrupt it.  Wolverine’s fight along the exterior of a speeding bullet train in particular is probably the highlight of the movie’s second act.  The fight scenes are a bit more rooted in reality than, say Superman’s might be, which helps keep the tone of the movie a bit more in the vein of a character study - not necessarily like Ghandi or Lawrence of Arabia, but you get my drift. 

Hugh Jackman slips on the claws-and-funky-haircut for a sixth time in this film, and he wears the role as comfortably as an old suit.  Not that he ever overplayed the character in any of his previous performances, but perhaps he is (and we, the audience, are) so familiar with this role now that there’s almost no effort involved in projecting the character anymore.  The well-written script certainly aided Jackman by giving him interesting things to do and say, and I found the Yukio character very interesting as well, all the more impressive because of the performance of the relative newcomer Rila Fukushima, a young actress with virtually no film acting experience at all.  The only character that struck me as being a “comic-book” character was Viper, seemingly played as cartoonishly as possible by Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova.  Her beady eyes, vampish body language and garish costumes projected a bit more “ham” than the material warranted, but this was the exception in the cast of characters, not the rule. 

I consider myself fortunate to be the age I am, maturing in my nerd-taste as apparently those who make films to cater to these tastes mature as well.  I have loved comic books and related material all of my life, but contrary to some evidence, I am a grownup now, and while the Richard Donner Superman and Tim Burton Batman films were entirely satisfying to me in their day, it takes more effort now to give me “superhero” material that doesn’t seem better-suited for the Disney XD channel.  Given how silly the first Wolverine solo film turned out to be, it wouldn’t have taken much to make a sequel that wasn’t a great improvement to me, but The Wolverine is definitely a great improvement, one that can (and should) make you all but forget the first one. 

…and if I end up living forever, maybe I’ll find this sort of filmmaking getting better and better and continue having a reason to live.  

Another look at Woody Allen's "Manhattan"

One of the things I find difficult in being a self-taught student of movies is when I can’t seem to understand or appreciate what other, supposedly more-learned folks than me see in the “Great Films.”  I understand the greatness of Kurosawa, Kubrick and Hitchcock, but I’ve never quite figured out what’s so great about Woody Allen.  I watched Interiors while I was in college and felt something close to disgust for all of the characters in that film, so I’ve avoided Allen’s movies in the years since.  However, a documentary about Allen that Turner Classic Movies ran not too long ago got me to thinking: maybe being a whole lot older would give me a different insight into his movies. Well, Manhattan is on several critics’ lists of the supposed “Best Films Ever Made,” so I found it on Netflix and gave it another shot.  Let it be known that while I still don’t get why Woody’s films are held in such high esteem, maybe getting older is making me more tolerant of them.

Manhattan follows the ordeals of Allen’s character, Isaac, a neurotic (gee, big surprise there), twice-divorced television writer who dreams of writing some great novel as a means of proving that he is a man of substance in a superficial world.  Or at least that’s what he pretty much tells us in the first three minutes of the movie.  His most recent ex-wife (Meryl Streep) has recently realized her homosexuality, left him for a woman and is now writing a book detailing her relationship with Isaac and her newfound happiness as a lesbian.  He’s currently dating Tracy, a 17-year old girl (Mariel Hemingway, in her film debut) who adores him, but he can’t bring himself to have deep emotions for a girl so young.  Isaac’s best friend, Yale (Michael Murphy) is somewhat happily married, but has taken up a dalliance with Mary (Diane Keaton), a horribly insecure writer who puts forth an intellectually snobbish front because that’s just how one behaves in New York.

Isaac spends most of his time with Tracy explaining to her how their relationship can’t possibly last.  Yale and Mary spend most of their time wracked with guilt over the adulterous nature of their relationship.  Isaac’s ex-wife spends most of her time dwelling on how lousy her relationship with Isaac was.  Mary spends most of her time with Isaac explaining how awful she is at relationships in general, yet wishing she could find one.

In much simpler and fewer words, this is a movie filled with screwed up people, and that sounds like just about every one of Allen’s films since Annie Hall.  Of course, real life is filled with screwed-up people and life is what happens when you’re trying to overcome your problems, a shocking realization to which I’ve come in my advanced age.  Allen’s screenplay, written with Marshall Brickman, is filled with wonderfully entertaining dialogue that harkens back to his stand-up comic days.  The film does have a dry sense of humor about the problems these people have, but perhaps my Bible-Belt upbringing keeps me from having a lot of sympathy for the New York characters with which Allen populates his films.  The characters here, with the possible exception of Yale’s wife (Anne Byrne, who was once Mrs. Dustin Hoffman), are all lacking a basic understanding of emotional fidelity, something I learned from Mom and Dad, and in Sunday School.  Maybe New York synagogues don’t do as good a job, I don’t know.

Allen is a wonderfully gifted writer of dialogue.  It’s ridiculous not to acknowledge that.  In the above-mentioned documentary, he states that everything else he does as a filmmaker is merely as a means to bring his writing to life, and that he is first and foremost a writer.  I’ll even go so far as to grant that he is a better-than-average director.  His choice of black-and-white photography for Manhattan was perfect for this story, as New York is the most black-and-white of cities, and the characters here all lack an understanding of the black-and-white issue of emotional commitment.  He laces the soundtrack with the music of George Gershwin, who filled Tin Pan Alley with the sounds of his songs during the Roaring Twenties, and songs like “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Embraceable You” cast a sense of love’s simplicity over the lives of these people who must complicate everything they feel.  They wander through lovely scenes of horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park and watching the sun rise over the 59^th Street Bridge while they bemoan their existence.

Is it a good movie?  Yes, I think it’s a wonderfully made movie with a fairly interesting story, but I can’t recommend it.  The story ends leading us to believe that the only character who understands the human heart is the one we should least suspect of having such wisdom.  While Isaac does come to a realization about his deepest feelings by the end, Manhattan, in typical Allen fashion, doesn’t give us any hope that any of us deserve to be loved.  I, for one, need that from my movie-watching experience.  I guess I’m just too much the sucker for happy endings to constantly expose myself to Allen’s world, where there aren’t any.  The real world is enough like that as it is.