The most amusing moments in the new Woody Allen movie — OK, the only amusing moments — are the Holocaust jokes his paranoid character cracks.
In “Anything Else,” Allen plays Dobel, a longtime schoolteacher and aspiring comedy writer who befriends a nice Jewish fellow who’s also starting out penning gags for comics. Ultra-sensitive to anything resembling anti-Semitism, Dobel warns Jerry (Jason Biggs) that the jack-booted menace is lurking around the corner.
“You don’t want your life to turn up as black-and-white newsreel footage scored to cello music in a minor key,” says Dobel with that distinctive Allen delivery and familiar hand gestures.
Later, Dobel prods Jerry into buying a rifle for his apartment, preaching the need for suspicion and self-protection.
“What you don’t know will kill you!” Dobel asserts. “Like they tell you you’re going to the showers, but they turn out not to be showers.”
Funny? Not particularly. Stranded in the boring, innocuous desert of “Anything Else” for an hour and 48 minutes, I welcomed even the tiniest glimmer of an oasis of wit or social commentary.
“Anything Else” opened last week, and is currently playing around the Bay Area.
Allen plays a supporting character this time, though he gives himself the better lines (but not the girl, thankfully). The heart of the film is the lamebrain relationship between Jerry and Amanda (Christina Ricci), an actress with a self-diagnosed commitment problem.
Jerry may be inspired to a degree by the young Woody Allen, who got his start peddling jokes to nightclub comics. Jerry’s Jewish agent, Harvey (Danny DeVito), bears a passing resemblance to the agent in “Broadway Danny Rose,” which drew on Allen’s early years in show biz.
But it’s doubtful that Allen was as easily steamrolled by his girlfriends — including Louise Lasser — as Jerry is by Amanda. Unable to say no to any request, Jerry even lets her boozy mother (Stockard Channing, bringing some desperately needed energy and a touching piano ballad to her handful of scenes) move into their apartment.
What’s truly shocking is that “Anything Else” has the same flaws as so many unwatchable low-budget films made by first-time writer-directors in their 20s.
Allen seems to have forgotten everything he ever knew about story structure and character development. There’s not a single scene of Jerry meeting with a client, or Amanda at an audition or Dobel teaching school. We get one dull conversation after another.
Even the presence of movie stars is insufficient to convince us these are flesh-and-blood people and that their plights have weight. Nearly every bit of information is communicated to the audience through dialogue. But instead of trenchant, pithy declarations, the characters now utter banalities.
New Yorkers in exile will at least derive pleasure from Allen’s tour of his favorite Manhattan spots, such as the Stage Deli and the Village Vanguard jazz club. Of course, if Dobel were truly paranoid he wouldn’t spend so much time in Central Park.
“Anything Else” marks Allen’s fourth or fifth consecutive dog.
Willie Mays played one year too many at the end of his career, and the memory of his amazing talent was tarnished for many fans by his flailing at the plate. He was a Met then; you’d think Allen would remember.
I won’t be presumptuous enough to say that it’s time for Allen to retire. But as a cure for his recent vapidity and self-indulgence, I recommend he make a picture every two years instead of every year, and devote the extra time to sharpening the screenplay.
For now, though, the only appropriate response to “Anything Else” is “No, thanks.”
“Anything Else” is currently playing around the Bay Area.