Here we are once
again: another year, another Woody Allen film. The prolific director’s latest
cinematic endeavor comes packed with the filmmaker’s trademarks: erudite
intellectuals sit around conversing about philosophy and morality until an
ill-conceived scheme (or two) comes along to shake up the snow-globe sized
world they inhabit. But as in Allen’s past few films, those philosophical musings
get thrown around without ever capturing how real human beings might engage
with them; these people exist only as characters in a Woody Allen film. And
then there’s Allen’s troubling continued need to cast ingรฉnues as love
interests for his much older leading men. If that suggests an obliviousness (or
perhaps ambivalence) to the attention being paid to his personal life,
“Irrational Man” at least hints that some of the outside world may finally be
sinking in.
Maintaining the kind of pace Allen
does inevitably has an impact on his output, and his recent films have a
tendency to arrive feeling only half-baked. The reason may be explained by a recent
interview with NPR, in which the
director admits that for him filmmaking isn’t a passion, but simply “a pleasant
way to make a living.” That mindset makes a lot of sense if you consider his
movies as hobbies he tinkers with out in the garage whenever he has a free
moment, until they’re required to be released into theaters.
In Allen’s latest diversion, Joaquin
Phoenix plays Abe Lucas, a newly arrived professor of philosophy at Braylin
College, a fictional Rhode Island university of liberal arts. Abe may once have
been a visionary thinker, filled with potential, but he’s not anymore. Schlubby, cynical, and indifferent to the world and
seemingly everyone in it, he’s perpetually drowning his distressed mind in
booze (courtesy of his ever-present flask). Yet somehow he’s still irresistible
to women. In particular, Jill (Emma Stone), a promising student of Abe’s, for
whom the presence of a boyfriend (Jamie Blackley)
doesn’t stop her from relentlessly pursuing her professor’s attentions. She
obsesses over him, projecting her own idealistic notions on the man; where most
see “troubled,” she sees “fascinating and vulnerable.” Though Abe is followed
by persistent rumors of his past dalliances with students, faculty seem
inexplicably to look the other way. Meanwhile, an unhappily married fellow
professor named Rita (Parker Posey, faring best of the bunch) enters into an affair
with Abe, wanting to see herself as the muse capable of bringing the depressed
man back to vigorous life.
Jill and Abe’s relationship follows
the expected course – with him pushing her away and her growing more insistent
– until the moment he overhears a stranger’s conversation, which presents him
with a unique opportunity. As Abe formulates a plot that may help him get his
groove back, the film shifts gears and the loose comedy begins to contemplate
the darker side of human nature.
Allen is covering similar moral
territory as his great “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” but unlike that film, which
separated its tonal shifts into two separate stories – cutting between the two
and allowing them to complement and enrich one another as needed – here they
coexist uneasily in a single plot. There’s a sharp divide between the two
halves of the film, and the result is a romance that isn’t really romantic
fused to a thriller that never truly thrills. “Irrational Man” eventually
reveals itself as a coming-of-age story of sorts for Jill (which actually makes
it sound even creepier than it is). The plot revolves around her naivetรฉ
falling away as her illusions about Abe are shattered. But since we see
straight away what kind of man he is, that means we’re forced to wait around
for her to catch up.
One of the reasons so many like
myself are inclined to read certain aspects of Allen’s films as commentary on
his own life is the increasing sense that Allen has over the years grown
disconnected from average human beings. Even his more successful recent work
like “Blue Jasmine” displays a certain tone-deafness in its portrayal of the
supposedly blue-collar characters played by Sally Hawkins and Bobby Cannavale. Allen seem to have no idea what those types of
character might actually look like, so in his insular world, he’s required to
look more and more inward in an effort to come up with material.
(As Abe engages in immoral behavior
and expects to get away with it, he’s given to proclamations justifying his
behavior, telling Jill that “if it feels right, it often is.” He dismisses
those who discuss his proclivities as nobodies “filling their lonely hours with
gossip.” Allen throws these lines in as if daring us to make our own
connections, whether they’re there or not.) But “Irrational Man” distinguishes
itself from the rest of Allen’s filmography through a sense of self-awareness
about its troubled genius. For once, the director views his main character with
a certain skepticism (it’s right there in the title). Instead of revering Abe,
Jill eventually wakes up to see him for the sad man he is. Of course, he still
gets to sleep with her first.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2015.
