A Rainy Day In New York. (15.)
Directed by Woody Allen.
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Cherry Jones and Liev Schreiber. 89 mins.
All the stars that have recently recanted their Woody Allen participation should be applauded for their ability to bend with the way that the wind blows. Whatever the morality of working with a man whose adopted daughter accused him of molesting her, it remains the same as it has been for the 28 years since Dylan Farrow made the accusation. A Rainy Day In New York was shot in 2017, just before the fall of Weinstein and the rise of Me Too, and has been on the shelf ever since after some of its stars Chalamet, Gomez and Rebecca Hall realised it made them look bad.
Ironically, all this may be working in the film's favour: for a week in May, it was apparently the world's No 1 box office hit after some Koreans went to the cinema to see it.
Rainy Day is an attempt to do the kind of New York comedy Allen hasn't made for the best part of two decades, and hasn't made well for the best part of three. Two young lovers (Chalamet, Fanning) travel into Manhatten, become separated and have a series of romantic mishaps. It isn't particularly good but, because its intentions are fundamentally light and well-meaning, it's disappointments are more wistful than pained. It's like a dull walk around some old haunts that brings back happy memories. It looks great too, with legendary cinematographer Vittoria Storaro creating some beautiful compositions.
The lines aren't funny enough to make it work but one line that does grab audiences is, “What the hell is it about older guys that seems so appealing to women? Christ all they are is decrepit." The film's big irony is that it features three middle-aged men hitting on 21-year-old Fanning, and none of them is the Woody Allen surrogate. That is Chalamet, cast as a young fogey who likes old movies, piano dive bars and rainy days in New York.
Among the grown-ups, Schriever and Law manage to create something valid from their stock characters (insecure artistic director and his scriptwriter) but the younger performers, most barely out of their teens, are really stuck inside the straitjacket of Allen's dialogue. (Fanning's character is cruelly written, ditzy without redemption.) The exception is Chalamet. He may be an unctuous self serving fop, but if he can make a passable attempt at playing Woody Allen's Holden Caulfield fantasy, then he must be a talented one.
Directed by Woody Allen.
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Cherry Jones and Liev Schreiber. 89 mins.
All the stars that have recently recanted their Woody Allen participation should be applauded for their ability to bend with the way that the wind blows. Whatever the morality of working with a man whose adopted daughter accused him of molesting her, it remains the same as it has been for the 28 years since Dylan Farrow made the accusation. A Rainy Day In New York was shot in 2017, just before the fall of Weinstein and the rise of Me Too, and has been on the shelf ever since after some of its stars Chalamet, Gomez and Rebecca Hall realised it made them look bad.
Ironically, all this may be working in the film's favour: for a week in May, it was apparently the world's No 1 box office hit after some Koreans went to the cinema to see it.
Rainy Day is an attempt to do the kind of New York comedy Allen hasn't made for the best part of two decades, and hasn't made well for the best part of three. Two young lovers (Chalamet, Fanning) travel into Manhatten, become separated and have a series of romantic mishaps. It isn't particularly good but, because its intentions are fundamentally light and well-meaning, it's disappointments are more wistful than pained. It's like a dull walk around some old haunts that brings back happy memories. It looks great too, with legendary cinematographer Vittoria Storaro creating some beautiful compositions.
The lines aren't funny enough to make it work but one line that does grab audiences is, “What the hell is it about older guys that seems so appealing to women? Christ all they are is decrepit." The film's big irony is that it features three middle-aged men hitting on 21-year-old Fanning, and none of them is the Woody Allen surrogate. That is Chalamet, cast as a young fogey who likes old movies, piano dive bars and rainy days in New York.
Among the grown-ups, Schriever and Law manage to create something valid from their stock characters (insecure artistic director and his scriptwriter) but the younger performers, most barely out of their teens, are really stuck inside the straitjacket of Allen's dialogue. (Fanning's character is cruelly written, ditzy without redemption.) The exception is Chalamet. He may be an unctuous self serving fop, but if he can make a passable attempt at playing Woody Allen's Holden Caulfield fantasy, then he must be a talented one.
