Allen goes back to the 30's, the decade when he was born, with a nostalgic and melancholic look, towards a Hollywood world that no longer exists. The plot is simple and predictable, but what matters is not as much the story as the way it is portrayed. The collaboration with Vittorio Storaro, a master in the use of light allows Allen to create an effective atmosphere, inside which the love story hides a feeling of melancholy and nostalgia. And probably for the first time in Allen's production, nostalgia is not only for a genuine and naif cinematographic world, lost for good, but also for a genuine and pure vision of love.
Besides good interpreters, what really reigns in the picture is the wise and strongly effective use of light, from the wonderful amber and golden light of the opening scene on the edge of a swimming pool, to the awesome and never boring shooting of the Manhattan skyline from the bay, or from Bow bridge in central park, where New York appears as an embroidery of light and colour, the umpteenth declaration of love by Allen, and for the first time the necessary setting for that pure and naif vision of love. The picture is indeed a pleasure for the eye, a melancholic but still delightful evocation of old times ways of living and loving.
Besides good interpreters, what really reigns in the picture is the wise and strongly effective use of light, from the wonderful amber and golden light of the opening scene on the edge of a swimming pool, to the awesome and never boring shooting of the Manhattan skyline from the bay, or from Bow bridge in central park, where New York appears as an embroidery of light and colour, the umpteenth declaration of love by Allen, and for the first time the necessary setting for that pure and naif vision of love. The picture is indeed a pleasure for the eye, a melancholic but still delightful evocation of old times ways of living and loving.