Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber, Cherry Jones, Kelly Rohrbach, Diego Luna, Will Rogers
"He's phoned in roles before, but this was the first time I wanted to hang up,"-Roger Ebert's review of Marlon Brando in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
This is how Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York feels in a nutshell. It takes place in the present day, but the cultural references spoken by its characters makes me believe the script has been sitting in the bottom of a desk drawer since 1970. One character asks another, "Have you seen Out of the Past?" Huh? That line is uttered by Gatsby Welles (Chalamet). Yes, Gatsby Welles is his given name, and his parents either adored F. Scott Fitzgerald and Orson Welles way too much or are stark raving mad. The entire movie is rudderless and anemic. There's no energy. It's as if Woody Allen himself couldn't wait to get filming over with.
A Rainy Day in New York promises another lively Allen romantic comedy with Chalamet acting as Woody's stand-in. Poor Chalamet not only has to recite this inane dialogue, but he also has to take on Allen's physical traits; all for such a forgettable character and movie. Gatsby is a walking, talking anachronism. I was expecting a plot swerve in which we find out Gatsby is indeed a time traveler from the past. That would explain some of his mannerisms and speech, including walking around with a cigarette holder. At first, I thought perhaps the movie took place in the 1970's or 1980's, but nope there are cell phones and social media abound. Allen simply dusted off the screenplay and filmed it, not even bothering to update its allusions to classic literature or decades-old movies which would be unlikely to be spoken about by a twenty year old.
On to the plot (plot?) in which Gatsby and his girlfriend from college Ashleigh Enright (Fanning) come to the Big Apple so Ashleigh can interview famed director Roland Pollard (Schreiber) for her school paper. While Ashleigh fawns all over Roland, who hates his latest film and is on the verge of a breakdown, Gatsby looks up old friends on, you guessed it, a rainy day in New York. I felt bad for the actors having to get drenched for the sake of appearing in a Woody Allen film, but such is life in the big city. Gatsby also tries to avoid going to his wealthy parents' party while he's in town. When Ashleigh goes on adventures in search of Roland, who flees the private screening of his own movie, she winds up in screwy situations involving Roland's producer Ted Davidoff (Law) and a famed stud actor (Luna) who would like to make Ashleigh his next conquest.
Gatsby goes on a museum trip with Chan (Gomez), the younger sister of a former girlfriend. Chan confesses to having a crush on him back in the day. Gomez has the liveliest performance in the movie. She smiles like she means it, but she disappears for so long that when she does pop up again for the unearned romantic ending I forgot she was in the movie. The dialogue feels tired, with occasional Allen trademark one-liners that miss the mark. It isn't simply Chalamet who has to embody Allen, but I see glimpses of Allen in Roland and Ted complete with glasses and angst.
A Rainy Day in New York was filmed over two years ago, and due to Allen's legal battles with Amazon (the film's distributor) and continued allegations of child molestation against Allen, the movie was held out of release until this past year. They should've waited longer. A Rainy Day in New York is a movie which breaks no new Allen ground and feels like a retread of his much more heralded works. Annie Hall, it isn't. Heck, Anything Else it isn't. Or even Wonder Wheel, and that's saying something.
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