Woody Allen has made two masterpieces, 1989's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and 2005's "Match Point", and a pretty good film, 2007's "Cassandra's Dream", about people who commit murder and have to live with it. With "Irrational Man" - his latest film, and one of his worst - he revisits this theme and screws it up, a failure made all the worse by its bungled effort to emulate one of the greatest novels of all time, Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment".
For the uninitiated, "Crime and Punishment" is the story of Raskolnikov, a man who murders a crooked shopkeeper to prove that he can serve humanity while flouting society's notions of right and wrong. "Irrational Man" follows that theme with the story of Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), a depressed, alcoholic philosophy professor who decides to murder a corrupt judge in order to serve the "higher moral good". Once the deed is done, Abe feels he has done the world a favor, and is reborn: he feels alive for the first time in years, and finds love again with an adoring student (Emma Stone) and a married colleague (Parker Posey). His newfound happiness is threatened, however, when an innocent person is arrested for his crime, and his lovers discover what he has done.
Watching this movie is like being cornered at a party by a philosophy major who drones on for hours about the great European thinkers. It believes it is blowing your mind, but it is in fact ruining your night.
Allen seems to have forgotten how to create real, human characters, relying instead on clichés: the burnout professor, the fresh-faced ingenue, the discontent housewife. We never really know them, and we don't particularly want to.
I'm getting pretty tired of Woody Allen movies about wealthy white people going through existential crises. Every single person on screen is as rich and white as a cheesecake, and can't shut up about what a burden it is. (Really, what says "white privilege" more than "philosophy major"?) I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time and money than watching a bunch of trust fund babies regurgitate Heidegger while frowning.
The cast is badly misused. Phoenix is given little to do but mope, while Stone - in her second bad Allen film after 2014's goofy-in-a-bad-way "Magic in the Moonlight" - has such a paper-thin character and such terrible dialogue that she can't help but come off as rehearsed and mechanical. Posey's considerable comic gifts are squandered in a role that requires her only to look bored and misty-eyed.
The Woody Allen who makes us laugh and gives us something to talk about on the ride home is nowhere in evidence here. Instead, we get more of the Woody Allen of the last few years: a smug, self-indulgent blowhard who expects us to be dazzled by whatever comes out of his mouth.
No one expects him to be Dostoevsky, but we do expect him to be Woody Allen - to make funny, smart, interesting movies about funny, smart, interesting people. With "Irrational Man", he succeeds only in being an irritating bore who ruins the party.
For the uninitiated, "Crime and Punishment" is the story of Raskolnikov, a man who murders a crooked shopkeeper to prove that he can serve humanity while flouting society's notions of right and wrong. "Irrational Man" follows that theme with the story of Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), a depressed, alcoholic philosophy professor who decides to murder a corrupt judge in order to serve the "higher moral good". Once the deed is done, Abe feels he has done the world a favor, and is reborn: he feels alive for the first time in years, and finds love again with an adoring student (Emma Stone) and a married colleague (Parker Posey). His newfound happiness is threatened, however, when an innocent person is arrested for his crime, and his lovers discover what he has done.
Watching this movie is like being cornered at a party by a philosophy major who drones on for hours about the great European thinkers. It believes it is blowing your mind, but it is in fact ruining your night.
Allen seems to have forgotten how to create real, human characters, relying instead on clichés: the burnout professor, the fresh-faced ingenue, the discontent housewife. We never really know them, and we don't particularly want to.
I'm getting pretty tired of Woody Allen movies about wealthy white people going through existential crises. Every single person on screen is as rich and white as a cheesecake, and can't shut up about what a burden it is. (Really, what says "white privilege" more than "philosophy major"?) I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time and money than watching a bunch of trust fund babies regurgitate Heidegger while frowning.
The cast is badly misused. Phoenix is given little to do but mope, while Stone - in her second bad Allen film after 2014's goofy-in-a-bad-way "Magic in the Moonlight" - has such a paper-thin character and such terrible dialogue that she can't help but come off as rehearsed and mechanical. Posey's considerable comic gifts are squandered in a role that requires her only to look bored and misty-eyed.
The Woody Allen who makes us laugh and gives us something to talk about on the ride home is nowhere in evidence here. Instead, we get more of the Woody Allen of the last few years: a smug, self-indulgent blowhard who expects us to be dazzled by whatever comes out of his mouth.
No one expects him to be Dostoevsky, but we do expect him to be Woody Allen - to make funny, smart, interesting movies about funny, smart, interesting people. With "Irrational Man", he succeeds only in being an irritating bore who ruins the party.