ANYTHING ELSE (Woody Allen, 2003) 70

Reviewed: September 15th, 2003

[No real spoilers.]

The worst mistake critics make in regards to Allen's recent output is whining that he's been playing the same role for over three decades. The few people who bothered looking closely at Hollywood Ending saw not only a moving survey of Allen's career, but recognized Woody is angrier in the film than he's ever been (cf. the astonishing take in which Allen holds an unbroken shot of himself as he oscillates between manic and placid, forever on the brink of explosion, seething with contempt for his ex-wife's new lover). Now here is Anything Else, which finds a post-9/11 Allen even more furious and after thirty-two films still confronting the grandest philosophical questions. Yet paradoxically, with this I'm-sick-of-taking-shit ferocity has also come a sort of internal calm. Anything Else finds Allen less neurotic than we've ever seen him, finally taking on the role of mentor. The film is structurally divided by lovely tracking shots which follow Allen dispensing advice to young Jason Biggs in the park, and in Allen's body language it's clear he's more comfortable with himself than he's ever been. He sits with nonchalant authority, he walks with a confident swagger. There is no hesitation now, no fumbling, just a sagely man -- granted a somewhat twisted, paranoid sage -- bolstered by lucid positions (and sixty-seven years experience). With the calm has also come a sort of sadness, because it appears -- after wrestling with life's mysteries in so many great films -- Allen has finally resigned himself to the unknowable ('the more you look, the less you know'). If Stardust Memories (my vote for Allen's best film) is Woody's most ambitious questioning of his role as an artist, forever torn between making people laugh and profundity, Anything Else (nearly twenty-five years later) might be the first time Allen has reached any sort of resolution: the answer is that there is no answer (we will of course never know why there is so much misery in the world, the point of life, how to live forever, etc.), inherently insufficient but perhaps comforting in the gentle balance it allows. Woody trades the confusion of Stardust for a realization that the most meaningful truisms are often found in terse jokes, the funny and the profound simply intertwined, not vast solutions but little stepping stones kinda like a slight autumn comedy.

Anything Else is also about the perils of change and loneliness, with Biggs's character forever scared of departing relationships and Allen frightened his own city might be slipping away from him (more post-9/11 dread, but interestingly Hollywood Ending -- which ended with Woody leaving for France and was shot before September 11th -- prefigures the question of escape; in real life Allen recently moved to a house in the suburbs), even while the fear is simultaneously counterbalanced by Allen's typical vitriol for Los Angeles and a rousing affection for Manhattan seen in every composition. There's no denying the central relationship here (between Biggs and Christina Ricci) is well-trod Allen territory (complete with Annie Hall fourth wall breaking, voice-over and non-chronology), amusing but familiar. (There's also no denying I'm not a fan of Biggs.) What's less certain is why critics insist harping on what they already know and what they've already seen, continually refusing to confront the many ways in which Allen's still progressing (including stylistically: Anything Else marks the first time I can recall Allen experimenting with freeze frames and slow motion, as well as an increased variance between long takes and close-ups). Ultimately Anything Else angles for the self and for conquering the unknown, even if that victory means nothing more than shrugging your shoulders and making someone laugh.

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