Anything Else (2003)

How sad is this?

Disturbing yet enthralling

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Taking a look at film maker Woody Allen's IMDb page after seeing his wonderful 1989 film Crimes and Misdermeaners,I was surprised to discover,that in 2003 Allen had made a movie with American Pie star Jason Biggs.With a poll being held on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best titles of 2003,I decided that it would be a good time to take a slice of Allen and Biggs team up.The plot:Finding that his client seems to be permanently stuck to working in small-time Comedy clubs,show-business agent Harvey Wexler decides that he's going to give Jerry Falk a helping hand by teaming him up with a new client of Wexler's called David Dobel.Despite there being a 2 decades gap between,Falk finds himself becoming inspired be Dobel's no nonsense view on life.As he starts writing new material with Dobel,Falk's year long relationship with Amanda Chase begins to hit a rough patch,with Chase saying that she is unable to regain the excitement which she wants had for the relationship. Doing everything they can to bring the relationship back to life,Folk begins to wonder if there is anything else left to make this relationship one worth saving.View on the film:Shooting in anamorphic widescreen for only the 2nd time,writer/director/co-star Woody Allen and Darius Khondji superbly use the format so that the sight gags taking place in the background give the foreground a bold appearance.Along with the background gags,Allen also does very well at using corner shots which show (via inner monologue ) the corners that the characters find themselves in.Whilst the screenplay does feature a number of quick one liners,as Falk attempts to break out of his small-time roots,the screenplay by Allen never allows the viewer to fully warm to the relationship between Folk and Chase.Instead of showing the relationship gradually fall apart,Allen decides to start breaking it apart right away,which leads to Chase being shown as incredibly frosty,due to Allen not allowing any warmth in her relationship with Falk to be shown.Despite Allen's screenplay giving the character a bit of the cold shoulder, the alluring Christina Ricci gives a very good performance as Chase,with Ricci really bringing out the quirkiness in Chase's relationship with Folk.Taking on a role that Allen would have done decades ago,Jason Biggs gives a confident performance which allows him to clearly stand out in the movie,with Biggs delivering Falk's inner monologue's with a real sincerity,as Falk and Chase find out if there is anything else left in their relationship.

And Christina Ricci is no Diane Keaton. This sad exercise in raiding past glories fails largely from poor casting choices. Woody revisits some well-worn territory here and it just isn't fresh, amusing, insightful, or any of the things that make his movies so special. This one is dull, tedious and belabored. Even Woody Allen's character, Dobel, is obnoxious. Minor characters, usually so well chosen in his films, are overwrought, specifically, Stockard Channing and Danny DeVito. Nothing about this film works. It tries the viewer's patience. Sorry to say, I find this one of Allen's biggest misfires. All is forgiven however, thanks to several subsequent films, like Match Point, Cassandra's Dream, Blue Jasmine.

Compared to the recent Woody Allen movies, this one is a bit lacking in laughs and sophistication. Still the dialog is interesting and it's pleasant enough - just won't want to watch it again. There are funny situations that we see in many of Woody's heroines for example Ricci's infidelity and the way relationships transfer from one person to the next Stockard Channing is a bit tired looking. It's like a rough draft for one of his better movies. Jason Biggs is very much his American Pie type of lead. Woody himself is a bit out of place here and he's unconvincing. Ricci is a bit unattractive for a person many are supposed to fall in love with. Overall: watch it if you are a Woody Allen fan and want to see all his movies but it really ranks pretty low in his output.

Anyone not interested in seeing a morose, persistently pessimistic outlook on life should never see a Woody Allen movie. I have loved almost everything he has done since Annie Hall and have even come to later appreciate the sheer boldness and zaniness of early comedies like Sleeper and Love & Death. What I didn't expect, but should have, was how depressing Allen's movies would become as time wore on.Aside from the funny and charming light comedy Small Time Crooks, the 2000's must have been a bad decade for Woody Allen. His dark worldview is never more prevalent than Anything Else, which follows the relationship between a young, neurotic writer and his unpredictable girlfriend. The story is very reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie from the 1970s like Annie Hall or Manhattan. However, Allen has improved his game by no longer casting himself as the lead role, but here casting the very talented Jason Biggs to play the nervous, conscientious writer who finds himself with a girlfriend so unreliable and bizarre that he has to come up with new tactics everyday to keep up and understand her unusual logic and thinking. Biggs and Christina Ricci are both very good in playing roles Allen and Diane Keaton perfected 30 years prior. Indeed, the whole cast has a real smart edge to them that keeps the audience engaged and on the edge of their seat.There isn't much to say about the rest of the film, other than to see it and be careful before seeing it. Woody Allen, like so many other great directors in cinema history, is an acquired taste. Like Bergman, Kubrick, Welles or Wilder, he is so unique and individualistic in the way he creates characters and situations that it makes perfect sense if someone tells me they don't care for Woody Allen movies. I must confess, his last few films have become so negative and pessimistic in their outlook and message that it makes me feel very depressed. And yet, his films are always interesting. Despite his usual downbeat material, Allen is not without reason and it makes for a very interesting debate and thought-provoking discussion if you can find someone. The message of this film is that life is so inexplicable that so often you cannot even try to explain why and how things happen. Though I wish I could, I cannot disagree with that thinking and it is because of this that I continue to seek out Woody Allen films.