CELEBRITY (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Woody Allen Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Joe Mantegna, Charlize Theron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Famke Janssen, Winona Ryder, Melanie Griffith, Bebe Neuwirth, Michael Lerner, Hank Azaria, Gretchen Mol, Dylan Baker, Jeffrey Wright, Greg Mottola, Andre Gregory, Saffron Burrows, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Joey Buttafuoco, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, Donald Trump
After hearing reviews for Woody Allen's upteenth movie in history, "Celebrity," range from terribly boring to just so-so, my heart lept when the opening images of the film closely resembled that of "Manhattan," my personal favorite from my personal favorite director of all time. Woody Allen's films almost never rely on visual flair over textual flair, so when one of his films closely resembles the one time that these two entities fit hand-in-hand ("Manhattan" really is one of the best-looking films I've ever seen, beautiful black and white photography of the city's best areas, etc.), a fan can't help but feel visibly moved. The film opens up, with the usual credits with plain white font over black backgrounds, and an old ironic standard playing on the soundtrack, but then the screen fills with a gorgeous dull gray sky, with the word "Help" being spelled with an airplane. Beethoven's 5th blasts on the soundtrack. The city seems to stop to take notice of this moment, and it's all rather lovely to look at.
And then we cut to a film crew, shooting this as the film's hilariously banal key moment in the film, where the lead actress in the film (Melanie Griffith, looking as buxom and beautiful as ever) has to realize something's wrong with her life or whatever. It's a terribly stale scene for a Woody Allen film, with the great opening shots or without, and my heart sank and I soon got used to the fact that once again, a new film of his was not going to be as great as his past works (though, for the record, last year's "Deconstructing Harry" came awfully close).
What the hell has happened to him? The man who once could be relied on for neurotic freshness in cinema has not become less funny, but his films have become less insightful and more like he tossed them together out of unfinished ideas. "Bullets Over Broadway," though wonderful, relies on irony to pull a farce that just never totally takes off. "Mighty Aphrodite" is more full of great moments and lines than a really great story. "Everyone Says I Love You" was more of a great idea than a great film. Even "Deconstructing Harry" is admittingly cheap in a way, even if it does top as one of his most truly hilarious films.
If anything, the reception of "Celebrity" by everyone should tip Allen off to the fact that this time, it's not the audience and critics who are wrong about how wonderful his film is: it's him. "Celebrity" is, yes, a good film, but it's only marginally satisfying as a Woody Allen film. Instead of creating the great Woody Allen world, he's created a world out of a subject he knows only a bit about. And he's fashioned a film that is based almost entirely on his uninformed philosophy of celebrities, so that it plays like a series of skits with minor connections. It's like "La Dolce Vita" without the accuracy, the right amount of wit, and the correct personal crisis.
Woody, becoming more insecure in his old age, choses to drop the Woody Allen character in on the world of celebrities, and then hang him and all his flaws up for scrutiny, and does this by casting not himself but Brit actor Kenneth Branagh in the lead. Much has been said about his performance - dead on but irritating, makes one yearn for the real thing, blah blah blah - but to anyone who actually knows the Woody Allen character knows that Branagh's performance, though featuring some of the same mannerisms (stuttering, whining, lots o' hand gestures), is hardly a warts-and-all impersonation. Branagh brings along with him little of the Woody Allen charm, which actually allows for his character's flaws to be more apparent. Woody's a flawed guy, and we know it, but we love him anyway, because he's really funny and really witty and really intelligent. Branagh's Allen is a bit more flat-out bad, but with the same charm so that, yes, we like him, but we're still not sure if he's really a good person or not.
His character, Lee Simon, is first seen on the set of the aforementioned movie, hits on extra actress Winona Ryder, then goes off to interview Griffith, who takes him to her childhood home where he makes a pass at her, and she denies him...sorta. We then learn, through flashbacks, that Lee has been sucked into trying to be a celebrity thanks to a mid-life crisis and an appearance at his high school reunion. He has since quit his job as a travel journalist and become a gossip journalist of sorts, covering movie sets and places where celebrities congregate, so that he can meet them, and maybe sell his script (a bank robbery movie "but with a deep personal crisis"). As such, he has divorced his wife of several years (Allen regular Judy Davis), and continues on a quest for sexual happiness, boucing from girlfriend to girlfriend and fling to fling over the course of the film.
After Griffith comes his escapades with a model (Charlize Theron) who is "polymorphously perverse" (glad to see Allen is using new jokes, ha ha), who takes him for a wild ride not different from that of the Anita Ekberg segment of "La Dolce Vita." Following are his safe relationship with smart working woman Famke Janssen, a relationship that almost assures him success, and his continued escapades with Ryder, whom he fancies most of all. His story is juxtaposed with that of Davis, who flips out, but stumbles onto happiness when she runs into a handsome, friendly TV exec (Joe Mantegna) who lands her a job that furthers her career to national status. While Lee is fumbling about, selfishly trying to ensure his own happiness, Davis becomes happy ("I've become the kind of woman I've always hated...and I'm loving it.") without doing a thing.
The result is a film of highs and mediums. The mediums are what take up most of the film, with sitations and scenes which don't exactly work but you can't help but pat Allen on the back for trying. But other places are really great scenes. The opening. The sequence with Theron, which is so good that I wished it hadn't ended. A banana scene with Bebe Neuwirth (droll as ever). And, perhaps the best sequence: a romp with hot-as-hell teen idol, Brandon Darrow, played by none other than Leo DiCaprio, who is so un-DiCaprio-esque that if any of this fans could sit through this film, they'd never look at him the same way. He ignites the screen with intensity, and spares nothing in showing his character as narcissistically tyrannical, and totally heartbreaking for Lee, who comes to him to talk about his script that he has read, and finds himself on a wild all-day ride with him. They go to Atlantic City to watch a fight, they gamble, and they wind up in his hotel room, where Darrow gets it on with his flame (Gretchen Mol) and he lends him one of the leftover groupies. Allen's writing in these scenes are so good that just for them, I'd almost recommend the film. Almost.
But what I really liked about this film is despite the fact that it's a mess, despite the fact that what this film really needs is a good old fashioned rewrite by Allen himself, it's still a smart and insightful film. Though some of the jokes are either stale or misplaced (some seem too cartoonish, even for this environment), Allen still manages to get across that this film is not exactly about celebrities, as it may seem to be (if it were, it'd be extremely out-of-touch), but about those who want to be celebrities, and how they equate celebrity-hood with happiness. We never get close enough to the actual celebrities to see if they're really happy (they may appear to be on the surface...), but we do get close enough to Lee and Davis' character. Lee is obsessed with the phenomenon, while Davis takes is at arm's length, and never gets too involved in what it is, and soon becomes one herself.
Besides, it's witty, and it does have the one thing that no other film has but Allen's: that great Woody Allen feel. It may be not exactly fresh and lively or totally brilliant in its depiction of its subject, and yes, as a part of Woody Allen's oeuvre, it's merely a blip (no "Annie Hall" but it's no "Shadows and Fog" either), but it goes to prove that no one can make a film like him, and only he and maybe Godard could possibly take a totally horrible metaphor, like the one in the beginning, and make it work not once but twice.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***
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