Cheap Hollywood Ending (DVD) (Woody Allen, Téa Leoni) (Woody Allen) Price

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time-marking comedy by a master filmmaker
**1/2 Did your mother ever tell you that it wasn't polite to make fun of blind people? Well, apparently, Woody Allen's mother didn't, since this is exactly what he does for a good hour or more in his latest film, "Hollywood Ending." (Or, perhaps, he just doesn't WANT to be polite). Allen himself stars as Val Waxman, a once brilliant film director who has fallen on hard times, partly due to his own temperamental nature and partly to his own tendency for obsessive/compulsive behavior and chronic hypochondria, all of which have made him anathema to Hollywood's major producers. Tea Leoni plays Val's ex-wife, Ellie, who convinces her current fiancé, studio boss Hal (played by Treat Williams), to take a chance on Val and turn a multimillion dollar film project over to the iconoclastic director. All is going well until, right on the eve of production, Val develops a case of psychosomatic blindness, a condition he and a few close allies try to keep a secret during the making of the film. The majority of "Hollywood Ending" revolves around Val's attempts to keep people from finding out the truth and delivering a creditable motion picture to the studio heads at the same time.

In many ways, this pallid comedy combines the slapstick elements of Allen's early works ("Bananas" and "Sleeper") with the cynicism of his later, more mature explorations of modern urban romantic life ("Annie Hall," "Manhattan"). Unfortunately, "Hollywood Ending" winds up as an uneasy hybrid of the two forms, mixing lowbrow comic mugging and pratfalls with the customary angst-ridden dithering that Allen has been indulging in (often quite effectively) for well nigh a quarter of a century now. Well, the bloom is definitely off the rose here. Part of the problem is that Allen's neurotic tics are amusing only when he has some serious points to make under all the humor. In this film, however, he is providing no insights to go along with the chatter so that he comes across as whiney and self-absorbed rather than witty and ironical. Val always seems to be blathering a mile a minute, so much so that we finally just want him to shut up and give us a moment's silence. To make matters worse, the scenes of broad physical comedy - Allen bumping into furniture, Allen breaking glasses, Allen falling off platforms - are not particularly well executed, lacking the kind of adept, split second timing essential to make such scenes comically effective. Thus, the film fails on two levels: both as a work of slapstick and as a verbal comedy of ideas. The film could, potentially, have scored as an acerbic satire on the ludicrous commercial values that define the American film industry, yet even most of these "inside" jokes seem strangely unoriginal and old hat, especially coming from a man as attuned to the industry as Woody Allen.

Although Allen, in his old age, has degenerated into little more than a wan parody of himself, Tea Leoni sparkles as Ellie, creating a character who is simultaneously strong, sensible, insecure and vulnerable. Leoni's performance is, literally, the anchor that keeps this otherwise lighter-than-air trifle from floating away completely. Barney Cheng does a nice job playing a Chinese translator whom Val uses to help him carry off this impossible charade; Mark Rydell provides some memorable moments as Val's helpful agent; and Debra Messing glows as Val's beautiful but bubble headed "significant other," who is far more concerned about losing her part in the movie than losing her role as bedmate to the neurotic director.

It would be unfair, as well as untruthful, to say that "Hollywood Ending" did not afford a couple of pretty impressive laughs along the way. This IS a Woody Allen film, after all. And even Woody on a bad day is better than many of our Hollywood humorists on a good day. But with so many great films in his oeuvre, one naturally goes into this film with high expectations. When a final assessment is made of all of Allen's prodigious cinematic output, "Hollywood Ending" will wind up somewhere very near the bottom of the list.

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An exceedingly empty and flaccid Woody film
This film seems to suggest a Woody Allen in his decadent phase. Throughout his long career, he has played opposite a series of brilliant actresses of varying ages. At first, the sight of Debra Messing playing house with Woody in this film is unsettling at best. At worst it illustrates the master filmmakers obsessive and pathetic need to present himself as a viable Romantic-type lead still capable of nailing hot, young chicks. The real problem is that there are very few male leads who Allen can vicariously express his peculiar brand of neurotic narcissistic angst through. We are left with Woody--who still manages to project just enough frail believability so that the story can move on from a rather implausible yet not impossible beginning.

Woody plays a once-great filmmaker, Val Waxman. He's everything a Woody character should be: hypochondriac, paranoid, bitter and caustic. At the start of the film, he's up in Toronto filming a commercial that is very much beneath his stature. The film centers around a basic premise: Val's ex-wife, Ellie, (Téa Leoni) has decided that he is perfect to direct the screenplay she has just finished for her new boyfriend Hal Jaeger's studio. The conflicts are obvious and ripe for comedic exploitation that never really materializes. The tensions between Val and Hal (his new boss and the man who stole his wife) do not exist. Although there are many fine performances, there is little chemistry on screen. Téa Leoni is fabulous, but the screentime she shares with Woody has no fire. There is nothing between the two actors that suggests the supposedly tulmultuous past of the characters. Debra Messing is equally great as Val's latest flame, but she's stuck with an extremely limited role and isn't integral to the plot whatsoever.

Indeed, the plot meanders for quite a while and eventually devolves into a long, torturous episode involving Val's psychosomatic blindess and his attempts to hide it from everyone associated with the studio. Everything else is fitted into that basic premise. It allows for Val and Ellie to spend quite a bit of time together, although the pairing is nothing of note and comes off as rather superfluous to the story as a whole. The bottom line is that this film has no soul. It isn't worthy of Woody Allen at his best and wastes a talented cast.

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Hollywood Ending
Hollywood Ending is a likeable Woody Allen comedy about a director making a movie with the involvement of his ex-wife and her new fiancé.

Woody plays his usual character- insecure and self-absorbed. He is a failing filmmaker whose movies are bombing the US. His ex-wife had left him for the studio exec who is financing the picture he's now making. The stress of it all leads to psychosomatic blindness in Allen, who without anyone's knowledge of his condition, attempts to make a film while sightless.

Perhaps the greatest drawback to HE is the casting. Although I love Tea Leoni, she's really far too young to play sixty-ish Allen's ex. In the best of his films, Allen populates them with strong actors and characters that give them depth and complexity. The cast here is simply not as strong as in his other films and it suffers somewhat for it.

And while this isn't any near his Hannah or Manhattan standard, it's still an enjoyable and fulfilling "middle" Woody Allen film.