EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
A film review by Wendy E. Betts
Copyright 1997 Wendy E. Betts
Parodies of Busby Berkely's famous geometric musical numbers have become so common in film that some people may think of them as defining the classic musical number, but in "Everyone Says I Love You," Woody Allen reminds us of how much more there was to the movie musical. Lovingly making use of virtually every standard except the overhead shot of geometric patterns, Allen has created a movie that isn't just a parody of, or even tribute to, the classic movie musical; it's a genuine rediscovery of the form. Watching it, I finally realized what, for me, is the test of a real musical: it made me wish I could be in the movie.
The somewhat rambling story concerns the romantic vicissitudes of a wealthy, liberal New York family, as enthusiastically and confidingly narrated by one of the daughters. I don't feel like dwelling on the plot, which has its ups and downs: some of the scenes are charming, some very funny, and some--particularly during Allen's chemistry-free romance with Julia Roberts--are tiresome, but not too painfully so. But the plot--as so often in musicals--is really secondary to the musical numbers.
>From the very beginning of the film, in which a lovestruck young man sings to his girlfriend and people on the street join in, I knew I was going to like this movie. I can pinpoint the exact time I was sure: when a long-haired panhandler, holding out a cup for change, starting to sing along; it was perfect, not just because it was funny, but because it was so exactly what Busby Berkely himself would have done, if he were alive today. Such touches are evident throughout the film, not as cheap parody but as bridges to an earlier mode of film-making.
But if this film merely replicated modes of the past, it would just have had me longing to see the originals, just as the film "Brain Donors" only made me wish I was watching the real Marx Brothers. There is much more to it than that. The songs, almost all sung by the actors themselves, have a shy, unsophisticated quality that doesn't exactly emulate most old musicals (although who _really_ thought Ruby Keeler could sing or dance?) but which captures some of the same _feeling_ as those films in which nobody was afraid to burst into song or dance at the drop of a hat. And the dancing--oh the dancing! I don't think I've ever consciously realized before how wonderful it feels to see people dance, how exciting and alive and freeing it is. Especially when they just seems to be dancing from sheer joy.
I think the strongest barrier to the making of musicals today is _embarrassment_. A lot of what went on in the genre seems silly by current standards, only fit as a subject for parody. "Everyone Says I Love You" works because it's not afraid to look silly. Some of the actors were obviously shy about singing, and mostly it works: I haven't liked Allen as much in years as I liked him timidly singing "I'm Through With Love." Dancing, on the other hand, really needs to be done with gusto and bravura and here it is; it's mostly ensemble work by professional, although one character gamely, if clumsily, joins in and succeeds through sheer chutzpah. The only dance that didn't really work for me--although my husband adored it--is an attempt at a half-Kelly, half-Astaire romantic number between Allen and Goldie Hawn; Allen was obviously too timid to pull it off well, and (perhaps in compensation) has Hawn magically floating and flying around like Peter Pan. It's both silly and rather beautiful, but I would have preferred seeing Allen just really throw himself into the dance, without relying on gimmicks.
"Everyone Says I Love You" has some flaws, especially in the non-musical parts--but then, that's almost a standard of the genre in itself. For the most part, it was a genuinely magical experience and I, for one, would be thrilled to see others join in the attempt to revive the movie musical--as long as they do it with as much love and understanding of the form as this film shows. -- Wendy E. Betts, Editor, "Notes from the Windowsill."
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