Once upon a time, Christopher Columbus helped show cartographers that the earth is round and that an explorer could not just fall straight off the map. Unfortunately, with his most recent release, Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen, once an adventurer himself, has created a world that is characteristically complicated but ultimately flat.
Writer, director and star of the acclaimed Annie Hall and Manhattan as well as earlier slapstick films such as Take the Money and Run and Zelig, Allen’s creativity with plots and strong thematic grasp are still firmly in place. Melinda and Melinda’s story deals with the discussion of four dinner-goers in New York. One friend offers a story and asks the playwrights present to tell him if it’s a comedy or a tragedy. Each writer starts explaining his vision of the story and its main character, Melinda, and two different yet intertwined plots take shape.
The only actor present in both versions of Melinda’s story is Australian actress Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland), as the title character. Mitchell succeeds in playing both Melindas with humanity and sufficient skill, slipping in her accent only once or twice.
The other characters are reserved to one playwright’s take on the story, and are shadowed by slightly different counterparts in the other version. Due to several lackluster performances, the switching between stories can be more of a headache than anything else.
The “tragic” version opens with Melinda looking disheveled and disrupting the dinner party of her long-time friend Laurel, a bland Chloe Sevigny (Shattered Glass), and her stressed, out-of-work actor husband Lee, played convincingly by Jonny Lee Miller (Hackers). In the “comic” version, Melinda bursts in on the dinner party of strangers Susan, an attractive Amanda Peet (Igby Goes Down), and out-of-work actor husband Hobie, a bumblingly bright Will Ferrell (Saturday Night Live).
In both versions of the story blind dates are deemed the best way to save Melinda. Chiwetel Ejiofor (She Hate Me) plays Ellis, the suitor in the tragic account, and Josh Brolin (Hollow Man) is his doppelganger in the comedic version. Love triangles, piano playing and suicide attempts ensue.
While the premise is clever, the cast is touch-and-go, and too often leave scenes feeling uninspired. The original question of “tragic or comic?” becomes irrelevant because you’d like to see Sevigny or Ejiofor just muster up any real emotion at all. In scenes intended for depth and reflection, such as those of revelation in a dimly lit French restaurant and of confrontation in Ellis’ apartment, the actors fail to make the script a real dialogue.
Despite previous inclinations toward frenetic overacting and a few regressions within the film, Ferrell offers the most engaging character in Melinda and Melinda. He fits the well-intentioned but fumbling Hobie well, in contrast to Sevigny’s Laurel, whom the script intends to be sad and brooding, but who just ends up seeming bored.
Instances of classic Woody Allen physical comedy, such as Hobie’s panicked reaction to his robe getting stuck in Melinda’s door, seem unnecessary, but Ferrell shines when portraying the social awkwardness of the character that Allen himself has typically played. Hobie’s silly tenderness for Melinda, hugging her head at the horse races when he is nervous, and his awkward seduction of a basketcase republican Playgirl almost redeem Ferrell for movies like Elf.
The frame story, the debate in the restaurant, is interesting, but these lines also often sound banal or didactic. These scenes are saved primarily by the caws of Wallace Shaw, whose voice has been his trademark since his cry of “inconceivable!” in The Princess Bride.
Despite solid efforts by Mitchell and Ferrell, the cast of Melinda and Melinda does not, as a whole, pick up where Allen leaves off. He provides an interesting enough theme developed with an interesting enough premise, but the dull performances leave the movie feeling flat. With his reputation, Allen doesn’t necessarily need to explore new territory, but changing who’s on board would make for smoother sailing.
