Double Trouble
Melinda And Melinda Director: Woody Allen; Starring: Radha Mitchell, Will Ferrel
Woody Allen’s latest film offers us two completely different takes on the turbulent personal life of damaged thirtysomething Melinda (Rahda Mitchell). The two different versions of the story are meant to be alternately comic and tragic, demonstrating the contrasting ways that similar situations in life can be viewed.
Unfortunately for the film’s atmosphere, however, Allen’s execution and attempted comparison of the different moods is critically flawed, thanks to his reliance on crude and ineffective methods.
For example, in the ‘comic’ section we see a woefully miscast Will Ferrell pratfalling and compulsively wisecracking, whereas in the other section our protagonist Melinda paces anxiously back and forth, drinking heavily (a standard cinematic motif for intenal turmoil) while other characters share supposedly cynical and witty (but actually banal) quasi-existentialist observations, such as: “Life has a malicious way of dealing with great potential."
This is presumably meant to be sweepingly tragic and ironic, but eventually only manages to look cliched and insensitive. Throughout, the film’s real problem lies in the slight redundancy of its central theme.
The general concept of tragicomedy and appreciation of all its ironic duality is hardly new (in fact we already effectively have a whole genre named after it) and the film fails to produce any sort of real resonance as Allen mercilessly hammers home a rather obvious and hackneyed point.
For example, when a character catches Melinda crying, he asks, “Are they tears of sorrow, or tears of joy?” She replies, “Aren’t they the same tears?” It’s probably true, but it’s not exactly a new observation – and perhaps not quite as profound or original as Allen was hoping to be with this latest work.
21st Apr 2005