Review: Hollywood Ending

Woody Allen (probably a bit too old at this point) stars as Val Waxman, a once great filmmaker whose ‘difficult’ reputation and a myriad of neuroses and eccentricities, has seen him slide in stature and struggle for decent work. He is thrown a bone by his ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni), a producer who tells her douchebag executive boyfriend Hal (Treat Williams), that Val is the perfect person to handle the script for ‘The City That Never Sleeps’. Hal isn’t sure, but Ellie is ultimately able to persuade him. Unfortunately, somewhere in between hearing this news and the first day of shooting, Val develops a form of blindness...a psychosomatic one. He doesn’t want to blow his opportunity, though, and turns up to direct the picture nonetheless, only telling his perfectly named agent, Al Hack (Mark Rydell) of his imaginary illness. When cast and crew get nervous over Al’s presence on set, Al and Val decide to let someone else in on the secret, someone whose presence on set every day is crucial; The young translator (Barney Cheng) to Val’s temperamental Chinese cinematographer. The translator, however, isn’t much of a film student and isn’t especially helpful. Meanwhile, Hal and Ellie become anxious to see what Val is shooting. Debra Messing plays Val’s bimbo actress girlfriend Lori, whom Val manages to get a small part in the picture. George Hamilton plays a film executive, whilst Tiffani Thiessen (and her truly impressive rack) plays a pneumatic actress whose attempts at seducing Val would probably go a lot better if only he could see her.

 

I don’t have much tolerance for Woody Allen (“Annie Hall”, “Match Point”, “Midnight in Paris”), but this 2002 comedy is one of three Woody films I’ve seen that I’ve liked (the other two being “Annie Hall” and “Deconstructing Harry”), albeit the worst of the three. That’s mostly because the basic ideas and themes have been done countless times before. Did we really need another film on the making of a film?

 

It starts off annoying and unfunny, with Woody at his most irritatingly Woody-esque. His neurotic telephone rant from Canada in particular made me want to hurl myself out the window. Meanwhile, the idea of him being psychosomatically blind and directing the film anyway, is as stupid as anything in “Midnight in Paris” (The out-of-focus Robin Williams in “Deconstructing Harry”, however, was genius). The ensuing bumbling, phony ‘blind’ acting (apparently he’s psychosomatically deaf too because he can’t work out where a person’s voice is coming from), and stupid morons who don’t catch on, are a bit lame. But after a while, I have to admit that the laughs came, and quite frequently. Yes, Woody Allen was still making masturbation jokes in 2002, but perhaps shamefully, they’re still funny (‘For me, the nicest thing about masturbation is afterward, the cuddling time’). Woody and Leoni also have a very funny conversation at a restaurant about their former relationship. There’s lots of good lines throughout the film  (Woody’s reaction to finally seeing his film is hilariously dry: ‘Call Dr. Kevorkian’) too.

 

Some of the performances are good as well, even if this cast is surprisingly low-grade for a Woody Allen film. Tea Leoni (playing what is one of the better female roles in a Woody film), an amusingly useless George Hamilton (or is that just an extraneous piece of luggage?), and especially veteran actor/director Mark Rydell are the best of the bunch. These three fit into Woody’s world much better than everyone else. Debra Messing completely bombs as the shallow bimbo, however, which is kinda ironic to me. It’s not a good role and she seems unsure as to whether to play it as simply dumb or opportunistic, and goes for somewhere in the middle. Personally, I haven’t liked her in anything since “Ned & Stacey”. I miss that show, damnit. Perhaps a more talented and better-known comedienne might’ve done something to liven up the silly role, but Messing takes a cliché and turns it into a caricature.

 

It’s a bit long, it’s a bit irritating, but funny is funny, and funny is really all a comedy needs to be. On that level, this film mostly works. The ending is a fizzer, however, and you’ve probably seen better Hollywood satires in your time. Several, in fact.

 

Rating: B-