In the age of super hero films I'm glad that there is still someone who is making films with witty dialog. Woody Allen should be praised for that.
But in this film neither the dialog nor the story works.
"Hannah and Her Sisters" works so well because Woody Allen understood these characters--how they talk and behave. He knew how to write for them.
That was 1986. Now it's 2019.
21-year-olds in 2019 don't say "I need a drink, a cigarette and a Berlin ballad." No matter what their background that's not how they would talk.
"A Rainy Day in New York" is filled with references that no one born in the late 1990s would have. Songs by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin. Films from the 1930s and 40s. And the name of the lead character, Gatsby Welles, is just a little too cute. All of these are Woody Allen references. The problem is trying to force these references on these characters. It doesn't work.
Maybe this film is meant to be a fantasy. It's not how 21-year-olds talk and behave in the modern world. It's how Woody Allen wishes they talked and behaved.
No one wants to see a film about people staring into their phones but the truth is that the two leading characters would have been texting each other every few minutes and wouldn't have gotten so completely separated from each other. I think it's clear that Woody Allen hates cell phones because they get in the way of his stories.
I would have suggested two important changes to the film. Have it take place 25 years earlier--1994 instead of 2019, before everyone had their own phone--and make the characters in their mid-30s instead of their early 20s. With those two changes I think this would be remembered as one of Woody Allen's better films. As it stands he's created characters he doesn't know or understand and, unfortunately, it shows.
"Hannah and Her Sisters" works so well because Woody Allen understood these characters--how they talk and behave. He knew how to write for them.
That was 1986. Now it's 2019.
21-year-olds in 2019 don't say "I need a drink, a cigarette and a Berlin ballad." No matter what their background that's not how they would talk.
"A Rainy Day in New York" is filled with references that no one born in the late 1990s would have. Songs by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin. Films from the 1930s and 40s. And the name of the lead character, Gatsby Welles, is just a little too cute. All of these are Woody Allen references. The problem is trying to force these references on these characters. It doesn't work.
Maybe this film is meant to be a fantasy. It's not how 21-year-olds talk and behave in the modern world. It's how Woody Allen wishes they talked and behaved.
No one wants to see a film about people staring into their phones but the truth is that the two leading characters would have been texting each other every few minutes and wouldn't have gotten so completely separated from each other. I think it's clear that Woody Allen hates cell phones because they get in the way of his stories.
I would have suggested two important changes to the film. Have it take place 25 years earlier--1994 instead of 2019, before everyone had their own phone--and make the characters in their mid-30s instead of their early 20s. With those two changes I think this would be remembered as one of Woody Allen's better films. As it stands he's created characters he doesn't know or understand and, unfortunately, it shows.