Originally published 4/14/2005
Melinda and Melinda
Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Producer: Letty Aronson
Stars: Radha Mitchell, Chloë Sevigny, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Will Ferrell, Amanda Peet, Jonny Lee Miller, Brooke Smith, Wallace Shawn, Larry Pine
There’s a moment in Melinda and Melinda where a character regards their reflection in the mirror and we know exactly what they are about to berate themselves over. They never say it, but they don’t have to – another character already did, just in a different version of the story.
And it’s that it is two characters we would hardly imagine as reflections of each other, and that they are heading towards destinations which, though not the same, certainly pass a few of the same landmarks along the way, which makes Woody Allen’s latest movie his most involving in years. It is also many other things – sloppy, thought-provoking, delicate, maddeningly-obvious, well-written and badly-written. How much more exciting it is to take in, then, than another exhausted and minor farce like Small Time Crooks.
Over dinner, two playwrights argue over whether life is essentially tragic or comic. The comedic playwright (Wallace Shawn, settling in for another long and profound meal) argues that life is tragic, otherwise people wouldn’t need the release of his comedies. And the tragedian (Larry Pine) counters that if life were not inherently comedic, audiences wouldn’t recognize it in his friend’s comedies, which is why no one comes to see his tragedies. One of their tablemates throws out a challenge: to interpret something that happened to some “friends” not long ago – an unexpected guest named Melinda (Radha Mitchell) crashed a dinner party and, subsequently, the lives of those at the party.
Each playwright then spins their version of the tale – the comic who thinks life is tragic doesn’t see how this story could end any way but comedically, and vice-versa. And while both stories deal with much of the same subject matter as they cut back and forth, they demonstrate that all can be either funny or sad. Infidelity, neurosis, broken homes, people who drink too much, lies, suicide – all either funny or sad, depending on how you see it.
In the “tragic” half, Melinda is a pill-popping wreck whose boredom with being a “doctor’s wife” caused her to fall for a photographer and lose custody of her children. After surviving even deeper scars resulting from that mistake – her friends tell her they would prefer not to hear anymore and she replies “Why not? It only gets worse from there…” – she has come to bunk with her old schoolmates Laurel (Chloë Sevigny) and Lee (Jonny Lee Miller). Lee was the most handsome, talented and charismatic actor at their school. Laurel was the Park Avenue Princess who won him. Now he’s a monstrously self-centered alcoholic waiting for success to cure what ails him, and she devotes herself, between lunches and shopping, to finding happiness, and a man, for Melinda.
In the “comic” iteration, Melinda is the downstairs neighbor, also popping too many pills and smarting over a divorce from a doctor, who stumbles in on Susan (Amanda Peet), a struggling independent filmmaker trying to raise money from a real estate billionaire (David Aaron Baker). He likes the script, he likes Susan, but he would rather have a “name” for a particular role rather than her dubiously-skilled husband Hobie (Will Ferrell), whose contribution to every role is to decide it would be more interesting if they limped. Hobie feels increasingly shut out by his wife, and in spending more time with Melinda, realizes he would very much like to see her happier – just not with anyone else.
It’s the comic half which will be more familiar to Woody Allen fans, and the sight of the towering Ferrell channeling Allen’s miserable nebbish mannerisms is unsettling at first. We have seen it so many times before, the jazz-lover who’s somehow both charming and wretched, unimpressed by other peoples’ designated status symbols, bewildered by women who can’t satisfactorily explain why they do not want to have sex with him right now, and hopelessly, comically drawn to a whirlwind of a neurotic blond. It’s as regular as the plain typeface credits which have opened every one of his movies for three decades.
Which is why, even though it is the stronger and more consistent of the two halves, that it gains considerably with the contrast of the other. The comic Melinda is sunny, beguiling and sensual – watch the drastic way Hobie’s interaction at the racetrack with her changes when she reveals her erotic sensitivity to touch.
The tragic Melinda is a chain-smoking shambles (the sort of bull-in-a-china-shop knockout for which you usually ring up Judy Davis); can’t keep her thoughts intact, can’t find comfort or safety anywhere, and constantly duels with herself over whether it is the dark acts in her past which haunt her or an indelible darkness within herself. When we see the barest chance for happiness appear on the horizon, already we are hurting because while we cannot see how yet, we know it won’t last.
Each resonance between the two deepens the mystery, as each half visits the same candlelit bistro and the same New York society idea of the perfect catch – a dentist who plays bridge and hikes. The funny version is indeed funny and the sad version is indeed sad. Woody Allen invites us to divine – why?
It’s a potent reminder that he is one of the few filmmakers who can deliver both, and that only someone of his skill could take a conceit so pedantic and dredge real emotion from it. It’s like after years of people begging him to hide his pretensions and be the old, funny Woody again, he has resolved contrarily to be himself but dusted off the old tools anyway.
Some of them have undeniably gone rusty – Melinda and Melinda will frustrate and annoy you. Many of its characters have little time to develop more than one trait. You may weary, as I did, of Lee’s relentless obnoxiousness and check your watch when Hobie and Susan take an overlong trip to the Hamptons primarily to give Hobie new categories of things to complain about.
But you will also get to appreciate Mitchell’s expert work – her two Melindas achieve such distinctive life you’ll swear the tragic Melinda seems taller and skinner, like Mitchell can jut her cheekbones out the way other actors change their posture. And you will get to appreciate the elegant way the tragedy finally resolves, as we watch the characters do what comes inevitably and naturally to them and our heart breaks.
Melinda and Melinda has no answer for you about what life is really like. But one thing that is common in both ideas is that we are drawn to those who really live as we are drawn to life itself. We love, hate and need the brightly-burning Melindas as we need both laughter and tears.