Manhattan

Another of the movies I finally got around to watching recently to do a blog post on is Woody Allen's Manhattan.

Allen plays Isaac, a writer living in late-1970s New York with a screwed-up personal life. He's got an ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) who has come out as a lesbian and is living with her female partner. Jill, meanwhile, has written a book about her relationship with Isaac, which is to become a best-seller, at least amongst the set of people that forms Isaac's (and Woody Allen's) cultural milieu.

Isaac, for his part, has met Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) and started a relationship with her, which wouldn't necessarily be a big deal except for the fact that she's only 17 while Isaac is in his mid-40s, shades of the controversy that would pop up in Woody Allen's own personal life some decades later.

And then, to top it off, Isaac has a best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) with his own personal problems. Yale has a wife, but he's also got a mistress in Mary (Diane Keaton). And when Yale introduces Isaac to Mary, Isaac and Mary start up a relationship of their own, despte the fact that Isaac still has feelings for Tracy.

Along the way, everybody meets and talks, and meets and talks some more, with various bon mots thrown in and some sort of resolution between Isaac and Tracy being provided in the film's final scene.

I suppose whether you like Manhattan is going to depend entirely upon whether you like the films of Woody Allen, especially those starting with Annie Hall, or not. I enjoy some of Allen's earlier movies, like Sleeper, Bananas, and Take the Money and Run, and also enjoyed the later Purple Rose of Cairo (which of course doesn't star Allen; he only directed). But I've never been a fan of the "neurotic Allen", so Manhattan is one that I'm rather ambivalent about.

Allen made the conscious decision to film in black and white, and the cinematography is certainly a notable part of the movie, with a bunch of striking images of New York City of the era. That's a big plus, although of course for me it wasn't enough to overcome the plot problems.

Still, if you like Woody Allen, I think you're definitely going to like Manhattan. If you haven't seen any of his movies, I'd suggest starting with the earlier stuff.