MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993)
"We could be living next door to a murderer."
3.5 out of ****
Starring Diane Keaton, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Jerry Adler, Anjelica Huston Directed by Woody Allen Written by Allen and Marshall Brickman Cinematography by Carlo Di Palma
The first few minutes of MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY are as familiar and pleasing as the opening notes of a favourite song. The black-and-white opening credits. New York. Jazz. Upper-class neurotic intellectuals. One-liners. Allusions to classic movies. We have entered Woody Allen territory.
Allen, because he knows this material so well, establishes the situation, the tone, the characters of MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, in a few brief, economical scenes, then moves us swiftly into the plot: Larry and Carol (Allen, Diane Keaton) meet an elderly couple who live on the same floor of their apartment building, and then the wife dies of a heart attack the next day. Or does she? Carol thinks the husband (Jerry Adler) doesn't look sufficiently upset by his wife's death; she snoops, and is soon fabricating a complicated theory explaining how and why the husband may have killed his wife.
Larry doesn't buy it. He sees the neighbour as a harmless fellow, who gets his kicks from showing off his stamp collection; he's not the murdering kind, and Larry thinks Carol has seen DOUBLE INDEMNITY one time too many. Besides, while she thinks the possibility of living next door to a murderer is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to them, and a welcome break from their "dull routine," Larry is quite happy with his routine, and if the neighbour is a killer, he doesn't want to know about it, much less investigate. So Carol, enduring Larry's barrage of fretful complaints, enlists their mutual friend Ted (Alan Alda) to join the investigation, and later Marcia (Anjelica Huston) also becomes involved (a plan she suggests involving tape recorders and a phone call leads to the film's biggest laugh).
That this is funny is no surprise. Allen can write great dialogue in his sleep. Larry, trapped in an elevator: "Don't tell me to relax--I'm a world-renowned claustrophobic." Larry, talking to Carol about Ted: "Take away his elevator shoes, his fake suntan, and his capped teeth, and what do you have?" Carol: "You." The chemistry between Allen, Keaton, and Alda is terrific; Keaton and Alda have worked with Allen before, and this is apparent in the effortless way they inhabit their roles. They are so (seemingly) artless that many scenes seem half-improvised. Allen has great fun putting his habitual persona in the thick of a murder mystery: his paranoia and anxiety are played up to good effect, as he offers a running commentary of fear and doubt throughout each escapade.
What is surprising is how effective the mystery is. By the midway point, I was hooked; the plot had gone places I didn't think it would go, and I was eager to know how it would all turn out. The use of handheld camera and long takes are vital: when Carol sneaks into the neighbour's apartment, this visual style gives the film an edgy, pseudo-documentary feel that makes the scene surprisingly tense.
The suspense and humour are neatly woven together. Allen seamlessly merges these two disparate moods by having the characters themselves treat the possible murder as little more than a joke: they see it as a welcome source of excitement, and gather in trendy, upscale restaurants to discuss what might have happened, lifting ideas from movies and books. It is a game, a fiction. Murder is not real to these comfortable Manhattanites, even if it should happen next door. This allows Allen to have a lot of fun with some dark subject matter, without being too frivolous.
This blend of wit and morbidity is the most original element here, and Allen deftly, convincingly handles the transition from innocuous amateur sleuthing to something more sinister. Otherwise, he doesn't really do anything new--there are no great revelations, there is no pushing of the boundaries. He simply does what he usually does: sees with a keen eye the way human beings behave, and turns his observations into something funny, fast-paced, engrossing. It may be routine for Woody Allen, but it's not dull.
A Review by David Dalgleish (March 16/98)
dgd@intouch.bc.ca
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