EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
(1996) ***1/2 (out of four)
With his twenty-ninth film, Woody Allen proves again that he can be successful in nearly any genre he tries. EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU is Woody's first musical, a magical and romantic movie that manages to be bitingly funny and warm-hearted at the same time. Allen, who is 60 years old, is still just as entertaining now as he was at any point in his career, maybe more so because the movies he makes no longer focus on him but make him one player in a large ensemble cast.
The plot centers around one large, well-to-do family. Alan Alda plays Goldie Hawn's second husband, with Natalie Portman as their teenage daughter and Lukas Haas the conservative son in an otherwise liberal family. Woody is Hawn's first husband, their daughters Natasha Lyonne and Drew Barrymore serving as reminders of the love they once had.
Edward Norton plays Barrymore's boyfriend, who sings "Just You Just Me" to her in the film's opening scene, and later plants an engagement ring in her dessert as a romantic surprise. He gets a surprise of his own as she unknowingly eats the ring, which leads to a long song-and-dance scene in a hospital in which even a man in a full-body cast breaks into song. This scene is indicative of the film's delightful balance between parody and tribute to the elaborate, long- gone musicals of the past.
Allen plays an author who lives in Paris and has had little luck with love, until he sees Julia Roberts walk by. This turns out to be an amazing coincidence, because Lyonne has listened in on many of Roberts' therapy sessions and knows every little detail about her. Armed with this knowledge, Woody personifies her desires and fantasies and has no choice but to fall in love with him. And because he wrote the script.
Meanwhile, bleeding heart liberal Hawn has crusaded for the release of convict Tim Roth, who comes over for dinner and manages to steal Barrymore's heart with his uncouth ways, while Portman and her best friend Gaby Hoffman both fall in love with the same boy. All these characters have their romantic difficulties, and they all get to sing "I'm Through With Love" at one time or another.
Every character in EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU, at one time or another, bursts into song. The most intriguing thing about this is that Allen had all the actors except Barrymore do their own singing. Hawn and Norton turn out to be surprisingly good, while the rest are at least adequate. None of them sound especially professional, but dubbing everyone with professional vocals would have rung false and destroyed the film's sense of ambition that makes you feel like, when strong emotions hit, anyone will sing in public.
There are a lot of very funny lines and situations in EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU, as in any good Woody Allen film, but this one manages to be a lot more optimistic and touching than most of his movies. The scene in which Allen dances with Hawn on the banks of the Seine exudes more romantic warmth and poignancy than any other moment in any one of his movies. Maybe he's finally found happiness with his adopted daughter.
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