LOOK, I’M
WOODY. HOWDY, HOWDY, HOWDY.
Starring
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow
M
More water treading, but at least it’s got
some nice character work. Mia Farrow initially drowns as a miscast gangster’s
moll (remember, this is the woman who was duped by a nice old lady into
carrying the Chuckie Finster from hell), but gradually her performance grows on
you as one of Allen’s usual genre subversions; only in one of his films could
the tough gal be played by one of the meekest actresses in the known universe.
Allen himself stomps through as the film history’s only sympathetic
entertainment agent, a man who invites blind people and talking birds to his
thanksgiving dinners when he really has very little to be thankful for. It’s
not really a comment on anything, but unlike Purple Rose of Cairo it doesn’t really have much to build on; it’s
just another one of those weird late 70s movies where an odd couple ends up in
a ditch bickering before falling in love with each other, like Smokey and the Bandit if Burt Reynolds
was a Jewish neurotic instead of the throbbing physical embodiment of pure
manhood that he’s always been.
Thankfully
it doesn’t really need any depth; as one of Allen’s purest romp-type-things its
blocks ahead of Scoop or Don’t Drink the Water, whilst featuring
two scenes guaranteed to raise a smile even from someone who had to watch Whatever Works and Cassandra’s Dream in the same
week: a mishap with some helium, and this song.
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