Manhattan Review

Woody Allen has gone on record to state that he loathes Manhattan. He felt it was too preachy and self-righteous and he even tried to get the producers to destroy it before it released under the condition that he'd do his next film for free.

Under normal circumstances, such a comment from a director about his own film never bodes well for the movie. If the creator himself hates it, why wouldn't I?

And under normal circumstances that would be a fair reaction. This however, is no normal circumstance. Manhattan has widely been regarded as one of Allen's best works and consistently ranks up there with the best - year after year. So what is it about the movie that makes people love it but makes Allen hate it so much?

I can't speak for Woody Allen or countless other individuals, however I will agree with the latter in confidently stating that Manhattan is a delight.

While Annie Hall was Woody Allen's love letter to love itself, Manhattan is his love letter to New York.

Manhattan narrates the story of Isaac (Allen) - a middle aged man who quits his day job to pursue a career as a writer. He's disillusioned with life in New York and has forgotten what made him feel alive. Perhaps writing about the city he held so dearly would help him rediscover his youth.

In order to pursue his writing career, he hangs around a pretentious artistic group of friends that Isaac should love.These intellectual conversations are supposed to fuel him. But they don't.

What does fuel him is Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) - an 18 year old infatuated with him. Now Allen has received a lot of criticism over how young his romantic interest in the movie was and the allegations he faced later on in his career did nothing to help his case.

While I'll refrain from talking about his legal matters and what he did or did not do in his private life, I understand the casting from a purely cinematic point of view. In leiu of what the film needed and what Allen was trying to do, having a love interest who was so diametrically opposed to the kind of person Isaac wanted to be made sense.

Tracy is this naive, youthful, energetic girl who believes in love and believes in living. She is everything Isaac isn't. She has this innocent joie-de-vivre that most people lose as they grow older. And in all honesty, how couldn't you lose it. The world isn't a bright, happy place. But to a young teenager, it is. And that's exactly what Isaac needed. Tracy embodies the best of New York - the city that Allen and his namesake Isaac fell in love with.

The supporting cast in Manhattan includes a magnificent cameo by Meryl Streep as Isaac's bitter ex wife who's writing a tell all memoir about their marriage - much to Isaac's displeasure. It also includes Woody regular Diane Keaton as the stuck up writer that Isaac temporarily falls for - she's who he should fall for - the logical choice, but if Annie Hall taught us anything, it's that love isn't logical.

Manhattan is one of the few Woody Allen movies that doesn't ride solely on his screenplay and the sublime performances. Gordon Willis' cinematography steals the show. Shot in Technicolor that was then printed in monochrome, his black and white reflection of the city mirrors Isaac's life at that point. There's a disillusionment and despair settling in. But as the film rolls on, the disillusionment and despair fades away and the black and white setting transforms into a reflection of the beauty of minimalist simplicity - love doesn't have to be complex - it doesn't have to make sense, love just happens - it's that simple.

I still can't fathom why Woody Allen hates Manhattan so much. Maybe its because it gave romantic cinema it's most commonly used trope with the concluding hero's race to confess his feelings before his love leaves from the airport. It's a fair enough reason I suppose.

Or maybe the reason he hates it is because it's so uncharacteristically Woody in the sense that it has a feel good finish.

Love is great and all but it never truly works out like the films show it to. Love can be confusing and frustrating and it rarely works to our favour - something other Woody Allen movies can attest to. So when Manhattan ends the way it does - I could understand Allen's frustration with it - it isn't realistic - there's a false sense hope. But what I believe Allen is forgetting here is that Manhattan is not a documentary - it's a romantic comedy, and false senses of hope are what these movies are made for.

4/5