Movie Notes: Hollywood Ending
= 2 stars
Starring Tea Leoni, Debra Messing, George Hamilton
Directed by Woody Allen
Synopsis
Once-great director Val Waxman (Woody Allen) is shooting television commercials in Canada when he’s tapped to direct a major motion picture by his ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni). Unfortunately, his directorial duties are hampered by a bizarre case of psychosomatic blindness.
The Good
- Tea Leoni is charming comic foil as Allen’s ex-wife; also funny is Debra Messing as Val’s bimbo girlfriend. Shame they didn’t meet Allen in some alternate universe with him thirty years younger.
- A few laughs stemming from the decent premise of a director coping with blindness, and obvious requirement of the job.
The Bad
- Allen is way too old for this role, and seeing him paired up with Messing, Leoni, and Tiffani Amber Thiessen is gratuitous and somewhat creepy. It just furthers suspicions that Allen casts young actresses for questionable reasons and not in service of the story he’s trying to tell.
- Many muddled sequences that go on too long, or peter out with no punchline, and many scenes are lazily photographed — gone is the confident, masterful direction on display in Allen’s earlier work.
- Much material is a rehash of earlier movies — Allen’s dislike of California (Annie Hall), odd maladies (Hannah and Her Sisters, Deconstructing Harry), the artist’s plight (Stardust Memories, Celebrity, Deconstructing Harry), and a director getting help from an unlikely source (Bullets Over Broadway). Blindness occurred once before in Crimes And Misdemeanors.
- Ultimately, the decent premise of a movie slowly falling to pieces doesn’t pay off.
Conclusion
Passable entertainment, with two amusing performances from Leoni and Messing, but unfortunately Allen’s narcissism is on full display and pales in comparison with his earlier work — I never fully got into it.
Deconstructing Harry featured a writer with writer’s block, while Hollywood Ending features a director who can’t see. Perhaps Allen should have taken a cue from these metaphors for crippled creativity and taken a break.
Next Woody Allen Movie: Anything Else
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Curse Of The Jade Scorpion
IMDB: Hollywood Ending
Wikipedia: Hollywood Ending
Rotten Tomatoes: Hollywood Ending 47%