Kenneth Branagh (whom we’ll get to in a moment) was married to Judy Davis.
Realizing his time was running out and that he wanted to live his life to the fullest, he
divorces her and chases countless women including Melanie Griffith (the buxom leading
lady), Charlize Theron (the orgasmic model), Winona Ryder (the lowly waitress and
struggling actress), etc. On the way he runs into Leanardo DiCaprio (12 minutes folks, 12
minutes of screen time) whom Branagh wants to star in the screenplay he thinks will
rocket him out of his boring newspaper job. Meanwhile, by accident Judy Davis meets
Joe Mantenga, falls in love with him, leaves her teaching position and becomes a
television interviewer.

 While the audience is supposed to see that our love of famous names has gone to
far, we already know that; we bitch and moan about it all the time. The film’s
preoccupation with shaming the audience, already bombared with the message in our
newsmedia, is a tired ploy. It creates a situation in which the film, trying to jam its
agenda down your throat, runs out of steam early on. The film is neither timely nor
necessary. The presentation of its message, which consists of showing us stars that never
run out of happiness, is absolutely contradictory to the message. The jokes inbetween
kept me, the patron from abandoning all hope and yawning.

 What’s worse, the actors, with the exception of Theron, are severly misdirected.  I
understand that Branagh’s (I’ll get to him, I promise) folly was not the fault of Woody
Allen, but the rest of the cast create characters who interact in an atmosphere of shere
dryness and banality. The romance between Mantenga and Davis is so boring I wanted to
see them break up just to jazz the film up. The constant womenizing Branagh does
becomes so labored and so familiar, I felt like the film was literally circling in the air.
Why would Allen stoop to making a film that was so sloppy? Is he losing his touch?

 The final straw was Branagh. His performance is nothing more than a comedian
doing an impersonation of Woody Allen for two hours. When you begin to see the
nervous movements, the purposefully stuttered speech and the nonstop attention to libido,
you will see the world through the eyes of Branagh, who must have felt that he could do
nothing in the role that Allen clearly wrote in his own image. Branagh snakes through the
film, literally lampooning the writer-director. Is he poking fun at him? Did Woody Allen
really not direct Branagh this way? Did Woody Allen really want to see a younger
Woody Allen in the role? While he probably dismissed himself in the role for fear the
audience would critique him as being too long in the tooth, what Branagh does with the
role is much worse.

 Finally, I would like to condemn the marketing scheme for this film. Using
DiCaprio as a lure for a Woody Allen film is in bad taste. Why would a world-renowned
and widely respected director try to sell his film on a young and reckless teen idol? Is he
making a statement in the trailer for the film? If so, it’s appalling. A poor experimental
turn by an eccentric genius.