EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU (1996) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Woody Allen Starring: Woody Allen, Natasha Lyonne, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Alan Alda, Drew Barrymore, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman, Gaby Hoffman, Lukas Haas, Billy Crudup, David Ogden Stiers
The old musicals of the 30s and 40s showed a bunch of people surrealistically dancing and singing about being in and out of love instead of just following the usual route and telling the audience. Well, Woody Allen has taken this approach and taken some big twists on it. For one, the characters are way more neurotic than the previous ones. And the people in it, well, some of them really can't sing. However, this film is one of the most fun, entertaining films Woody has made in a while.
The story kind of takes a removed "Hannah and Her Sisters" approach to the characters, who are not only diverse but numerous. The film is narrated by DJ (Natasha Lyonne), who is a collegiate chick in a huge family. Her mother (Goldie Hawn) divorced her father (Woody Allen) years ago and remarried another guy (Alan Alda), but they're still all friends. With Alda, Hawn had several kids, including two feuding daughters (Natalie Portman and Gaby Hoffman), a somewhat naive daughter (Drew Barrymore), and a son who turned out to disappoint his liberal parents by becoming totally right-wing conservative (Lukas Haas), who has big political fights with his father all the time.
Now, Drew is engaged to Holden (Edward Norton, in his third cool flick of '96), who is great and all but is about as naive as she is. Then she meets an ex-con (Tim Roth) who her mom helped get out of prison who kind of piques her interest in that criminal way. And also, Allen, who is very neurotic (as usual) and is a writer living in Paris, falls in love (or lust) at first sight with a Manhattener (Julia Roberts), who is one of the people who his daughters listen to through a hole in their mother's therapy room. So DJ ends up teaching Allen how to get to her, using all her loves and causing her to fall deeply in love with what she thinks is Allen.
Now, the storyline is rather basic, I mean for a Woody Allen flick. It's not bad, but it's nothing totally special either (although the Roth/Drew thing is pretty original for Woody, I suppose), but what makes this film great is the musical parts. He modernizes all the tunes, not by actually changing them or anything, but by staging dances in the most original places possible. He does a musical sequence in a ward in a hospital, featuring straight-jacketed mental patients, pregnant women, and people casted head-to-toe dancing and singing "Makin' Whoopee." He stages a montage of characters singing that great Marilyn Monroe tune "I'm Through with Love," doing it in the most clever ways, including having a rapper rap the tune, but with changed lyrics featuring a single word that causes this to be rated R. And the finale features Woody and Goldie dancing on the shores of Paris, complete with flying.
The musical sequences are clever and charming in themselves, but the thing that may be a problem to some people is the choice of singers. Woody chose the actors for their acting capabilities and then later told them they were going to have to sing. So we get to hear such non-singing people as Woody Allen and Julia Roberts croon, while we get to hear the surprisingly good Ed Norton, Tim Roth, and Alan Alda, as well as the women we all knew could sing, Goldie Hawn. Drew is the only one who's dubbed, since she probably petitioned for it. Oh well, I don't feel a loss (just kidding, Drew).
And the acting's great, as it always is in a Woody Allen film. Standing out are Woody (as usual), who makes great faces as he lies through his dentures about liking the same things as Julia, and Julia, as she always does, rocks. Also standing out are Ed Norton, who talks in a kind of neurotic way, as he seems to feel the need to replace Woody when he finally retires from acting; and Lukas Haas is hysterical as the tres-conservative son. And Alda and Hawn are great as the always are. Natasha Lyonne is great as the very indicisive and narrating daughter. I have no clue who she is, but she rocks.
If there are any problems, it's that some of the subplots don't end as well as they could. Some actually feel rushed. The one dealing with Portman and Hoffman actually feels edited, but this one never really took any kind of form anyway. But I have to give it to Allen for finding the funniest ending to one of them in recent memory with regard to the Lukas Haas one.
The thing that's great about this film is the way it presents itself - as a 30s or 40s musical for the cynical 90s. The characters in this film seem to be trying to escape from reality through their songs and dances, so they can forget their problems for a couple minutes. And they're truly fun. I usually cringe at musical sequences in 90s movies, but this seems to be a rare exception. This is Woody's best film since "Husbands and Wives" and one of the most entertaining films of '96.
MY RATING (out of 5): ****
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