Melinda and Melinda seems somewhat like Allen making a student film for NYU. The premise – one story told in parallel as both a comedy and a tragedy – is the kind of thing you'd expect from a senior thesis film. Allen actually does a fair job executing the concept … although this was bound to be a bit of an experiment no matter what happened (a la Time Code). If he'd wanted to make this a truly good film, I think he'd have needed to make the "tragic" story as a standalone movie … which he's done numerous times and in fact kind of knocked out of the park with his subsequent effort, Match Point. The film is framed by a dinner table conversation between Sy (Wallace Shawn, in My Dinner With Andre mode) and Al (Neil Pepe, also in My Dinner With Andre Mode, by default). Sy is a comic playwright; Al is a dramatist. They discuss a story and offer their particular spins; each tale centers around the foibles of fragile, lovelorn Melinda (radiant Radha Mitchell in dual "comic" and "tragic" roles). It's well-acted, for the most part; Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chloe Sevigny, Brooke Smith, and even Amanda Peet stand out. However, it's not well-scripted, coming across like something Allen knocked off in a weekend. The dialogue and situations are stagey, talky, unrealistic, pretentious, and out of touch. At one point Mitchell is saddled with an incredibly generic "murder trial" monologue that is less convincing than shit I've seen on bottom-rung episodes of "Law & Order." But that, I guess, is a Woody Allen movie. He'd do well to find an inspiring screenwriting collaborator; you know, like how Elvis Costello works better when he has someone else there to balance out the tendency toward collegiate-level hackwork. The central problem is that the comedy and tragedy stories are not especially distinguishable as "funny" or "sad" … the comedy portion, especially, is not laughable in any of the good ways. For example, at one point Allen has Will Ferrell and Steve Carell on screen together … having one of the most straightforward conversations I've seen in any Allen movie, funny or serious. Ferrell, especially, seems way out of his element in the stock "Woody Allen" role that has previously been inhabited more successfully by the likes of Kenneth Branagh, John Cusack, and even Jason Biggs. Though ultimately Melinda & Melinda is a failure, it's one along the lines of Steven Soderbergh's cranked-out "experimental" work (The Limey, for example). I was encouraged, at least, by some unexpected elements, such as "current" dance music in a Woody Allen film, and black people. Black people in a Woody Allen film!!??! What's next, werewolves?
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