LOOK, I’M WOODY. HOWDY, HOWDY, HOWDY.
Starring A Load of People Who Can’t Really Sing
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Ever wanted to hear Jack’s Raging Bileduct burst into song over how much he loves his fiancée? Longed to watch Drew Barrymore’s lips fail to sync up with the soundtrack but look pouty anyway? Thought it should be whimsical lyrics falling out of Mr Orange’s throat instead of cascades of intestinal blood? THAT’S A BINGO! One of the few joys of watching latter day Allen is that when he’s not bludgeoning careers he’s flipping them about, making straight-laced do-gooders lurch to his frequently rubbish tune. Everyone wants to work with him, so everyone does, and normally before they’re uber-famous or pissing on red carpets. This leads to wonderful situations like those mentioned above, as well as seeing a pre-swan-breakdown Natalie Portman playing a ditzy, boy obsessed schoolgirl with a load of no-marks who never made it. It’s light, it’s stupid, it’s happy, and the fact that it drags in actors known for more serious work is a delight to behold. There is a sense that Allen’s run out of ways to address middle-class non-problems by this point, resorting to a knockabout sing-along as a desperate way of repackaging old observations, but the whole thing is performed with such a sense of gaiety that you somehow forget it’s faults, culminating in a simple dance by the side of a river that’ll make you a believer in Goldie Hawn. And that’s a hell of an overachievement.
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