Susan Granger’s review of “Melinda and Melinda” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
This is Woody Allen’s 34th film and his imagination is still fertile as he, once again, tackles the concept of alternate realities, touching on love, betrayal and other forms of emotional angst. At a Manhattan restaurant, two playwrights debate whether life is essentially comic or tragic. Max (Larry Pine) believes drama should confront, while Sy (Wallace Shawn) views comedies as a form of escapism. To illustrate their respective points-of-view, they both take the same anecdotal idea and expound on it. Namely, a troubled woman named Melinda (Radha Mitchell) arrives at a dinner party, uninvited, as her life spins out of control. In one story, Melinda is a boozy, distraught divorcee who lost custody of her children. She arrives to visit her college chum (Chloe Sevigny) and her edgy actor husband (Jonny Lee Miller). In the other version, Melinda is a neighbor who has swallowed 28 sleeping pills. She begs help from a dorky, out-of-work actor (Will Ferrell) and his filmmaker wife (Amanda Peet). In both versions, the tension-filled marriages are unhappy, leading to duplicity, adultery and heartbreak. Neurotic as ever, Woody Allen clings to his trendy, upper-middle class values but introduces, for the first time, not one but two pivotal African-American characters into his urban scene. The entire cast sparkles, particularly Rhada Mitchell, who embodies the fragility inherent in the complex double role of an admittedly passionate woman, and Will Ferrell, who functions as Allen’s sweetly insecure alter-ego. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Melinda and Melinda” is an occasionally confusing but inherently appealing 8, concluding that comedy is funniest when based on tragedy and that tragedy generally has a comedic edge.
