Friday, February 4, 2011

2005 - MELINDA AND MELINDA, Woody Allen mixes comedy and tragedy yet again and very obviously

Woody Allen takes on the challenge of telling one story from two different points of view, one comedy and one tragedy.


As if anyone doesn't already know, comedy and tragedy are very intertwined in drama.  Apparently Woody Allen has been pondering this deep thought for a while although Shakespeare had kind of beaten him to the punch in The Winter's Tale (1623) and Much Ado About Nothing (1598) by the time Allen filmed Melinda and Melinda (2005).

In the comedy part or is it the tragedy part of the story, Will Farrell gets stuck aping Woody Allen's acting style lucky fellow.   Steve Carrell has a small part, Chloe Sevigny, Josh Brolin and Wallace Shawn among others show up although I can't remember if they are in the comedy part or the tragedy part.


These actors in this Woody Allen film get to spout lots of pretentious high faulting dialog which is more preposterous than clever or entertaining.  Some of the things they come out of their mouths about art and life are really ridiculous.  It's as if Woody Allen never spent anytime around actual people.  However this a rare Woody Allen film that has some black people in it although they might as well be white people in black face.

Woody Allen directs Randa Mitchell in the comedy part or is it the tragedy part?

The cross cutting between the comedy and tragedy stories is sort of interesting.  As usual this Woody Allen film has his typical good cast, nice photography and yet another underdeveloped script. The soundtrack is Allen's typical tiresome selection of mainstream jazz music.   

Melinda and Melinda is just not much of a film.

100 minutes.

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