A Rainy Day in New York (2019)

[Simon Boccanegra]

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A young couple (Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning) arrives in New York for a weekend, where they are met with bad weather and a series of adventures. Also starring Selena Gomez, Rebecca Hall, Cherry Jones, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Will Rogers, Kelly Rorhbach, Liev Schreiber, and Suki Waterhouse.

Anyone who had wanted to see the much-delayed final product of Woody Allen's severed partnership with Amazon -- a film readied for release two years ago -- can now do so easily, as it has hit various digital platforms.

A good movie was not being withheld from us. As far back as Everyone Says I Love You (1996), it was apparent that Allen had lost the knack for writing younger characters, male or female. Although he has two college-aged daughters now and presumably listens to and talks to them, things had not improved by 2018. Chalamet broods and grouses and mimics the author's cadences like all the other bright, hyperverbal Allen stand-ins. Fanning dithers and blushes like Diane Keaton more than 40 years ago, when the words had more wit. 

The movie is, of course, attractive. It has good-looking people at every turn; it's nicely shot by the legendary Vittorio Storaro; the New York exteriors look great whether bathed in rain, sun, or mist; and the smooth, precise style of direction Allen worked out in the post-Annie Hall period has not left him. But as a screenwriter, time has passed him by. This is an out-of-touch octogenarian's story about privileged college seniors, and it's as tin-eared as that sounds.

The young couple gets separated in Manhattan, and Chalamet's cynical young poker shark runs into and flirts combatively with the sister (Gomez) of an old girlfriend. He later persuades an escort (Rorhbach) to pose as his girlfriend at his wealthy parents' party. (I kept expecting some comedic potential to be mined in that sequence, but it's thrown away. It's just a setup for a ludicrous truth-telling scene between Chalamet and Cherry Jones, playing his high-society mom.) Fanning's bright-eyed student journalist improbably bewitches, in succession, a famous director (Schreiber), the director's screenwriter partner (Law), and a heartthrob actor (Luna). Any pop-culture reference the twentysomethings make is to the pop culture of Allen's own youth, e.g., Cole Porter and mid-20th-century musicals. The romantic near-misses and realignments have no resonance; I never cared for a moment who wound up with whom. This is especially sad for a viewer who has fond memories of pictures like Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives. In those, the actors had characters to play, rather than just collections of tics and attitudes. 

The only cast member who gets much out of the material is Selena Gomez. It isn't that her lines are better than anyone else's, but she has good timing and puts them over with tart authority. Hers is the most likable character in the film. The piano jazz on the soundtrack is always pleasant (although I think Allen has used the same recording of "I've Got the World on a String" at least once before). Chalamet gets to sing "Everything Happens to Me" in a thin-toned but on-key and musically sensitive style that reminded me a bit of Chet Baker.

Skip, unless you're a completist for someone involved.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Simon Boccanegra

[StatisticalOutlier]

I agree with pretty much everything you said.  I was more or less okay with Jesse Eisenberg playing Woody Allen in some previous movie, but Chalamet was mostly annoying in this.

I made the effort to see it in a theater, and it was worth it just for this:

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The movie is, of course, attractive. It has good-looking people at every turn; it's nicely shot by the legendary Vittorio Storaro; the New York exteriors look great whether bathed in rain, sun, or mist; and the smooth, precise style of direction Allen worked out in the post-Annie Hall period has not left him.

 

[Milburn Stone]

In total agreement from beginning to end, @Simon Boccanegra. The thing you mention about the cultural references of the young people being those of an 80-something...well, I practically smacked my head when those words came out of their mouths. I mean, I don't demand that Woody be aware of what's going on now; but surely he must be aware that what went on in his youth is not it! 

When Amazon "suppressed" it originally, I was outraged, because it seemed to be part of Allen's becoming persona non grata all over again; Mia/Dylan/Ronan had once again made him too radioactive for Amazon to risk defending the work. Now I actually wonder if the execs sat in a screening room with their faces in their hands because they knew the movie simply wasn't good enough to be released. (Which would be saying something, considering some of the things they do put on the platform, but I don't rule it out.)

Edited December 4, 2020 by Milburn Stone