Anything Else

Anything Else

In Woody Allen’s “Anything Else,” the conversation is an act of neurotic courage, a defense against fear and insecurity. His people doubt they have a future. Careers are not going well, love is possible only through self-deception. They talk and talk to keep despair at bay, and because Allen is a master of comic dialogue, it’s fun to listen.

The new movie has both a mentor and a narrator one character gives insights about life and the other gives insights about him. The hero is Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs), a would be comedy writer whose career is stuck in neutral, and his adviser is David Dobel (Allen), a 60ish New Jersey school teacher whose career has gone nowhere; he hasn’t stopped hoping but he keeps the day job. They meet for long talks in Central Park well, Dobel does most of the talking, although Jerry listens intently at first and then begins to wonder: If this guy knows so much, how come he’s still stuck?

Jerry used to be fully in love with Brooke (KaDee Strickland), who gave him no problems whatsoever which may have been the problem; he left her for Amanda (Christina Ricci), who consists almost entirely of problems.

Amanda is an actress who seems to keep Jerry around primarily as a straight man for intimate improv scenes in which she explains all the ways his life must be miserable if he is to continue enjoying her company. He asks if she doesn’t love him. “Just because when you touch me I pull away?” she explains.

She declares at one point that there will be no sex for six months. When the ever optimistic Jerry makes reservations at an expensive restaurant to celebrate their anniversary, she stands him up (“I already ate”).

Jerry introduces Amanda to David. David takes one look at her. “She’s cheating on you,” he says.

He advises his young friend to spy on her, which Jerry does by lurking in stairwells and skulking in doorways for hours at a time, until finally he thinks he has enough proof to confront her with it. He is unaware that in matters of cheating the worst thing you can do is actually catch the other person what you should do is suffer in silence until they know who they are.

But “Anything Else” is not simply a comedy about Jerry’s romance, Amanda’s deceptions and David’s advice. There’s a darker undertow here. David has fears, not all of them explained, and takes his protege to a gun shop to buy him a weapon. Everybody needs one, he explains. It makes you feel safer; it helps you protect yourself and so forth. Jerry demurs; Amanda is appalled; David seems to be showing only the surface of his fears.

Amanda moves out, comes back, and brings Paula (Stockard Channing) with her. Channing is an original she can say the most absurd things and seem to think everyone agrees with her. She wants to be a torch singer. She has a young boyfriend who she met at an AA meeting (apparently not a successful one, since they’re soon doing coke together). With a girl who doesn’t want to live with him and a mother who does, Jerry’s about ready to listen when David suggests he dump everything so that just the two of them can leave for Los Angeles where all the jobs are anyway.

But that would mean leaving Harvey (Danny DeVito), Jerry’s agent of long standing, who charges him 25 percent above industry standard but then again works in an industry where Jerry is his only client and never works. DeVito is crackling electric in his scenes as an intense dynamo who feels so strongly about the agent client relationship that when Jerry hints it may be ending, he pulls a scene in a restaurant that more or less defines the notion of “public spectacle” for those unfamiliar with it.

The movie avoids the usual pitfalls of comedies like this by getting jolts from Channing’s work as well as DeVito’s; Allen also plays Jerry as such a worrywart who backs into every decision that you love hearing him protest and moan about the pitfalls and certain disappointment sure to lie ahead. At a time when so many American movies keep dialogue at a minimum so they can play better overseas what joyous creature do we have playing here? Smart people whose conversation sounds like some kind of comic music.

Strangest thing: The studio seems to be trying to conceal Woody Allen’s presence in this movie. He wrote it, directed it, got top billing on the credits but he’s not seen in the trailer, the commercials or the TV review clips. The trailer gives full-screen credits to Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, but only belatedly adds “From Woody Allen,” not mentioning that he also stars. It’s like they have a Woody Allen movie here and they’re trying to package it for the “American Pie” crowd.

Watch Anything Else For Free On Gomovies.