Manhattan

Two years after the wild success of “Annie Hall”, Woody Allen presented us with another instalment in his anthology of intellectual New Yorkers and their misadventures in love.

Allen plays Isaac Davis, a 42-year-old television writer who’s caught up in a relationship with an eighteen-year-old (Muriel Hemingway). Then he meets his best friend’s mistress, Mary, played by Diane Keaton.

At first, Allen’s and Keaton’s characters seem similar to their characters in “Annie Hall”. The film has their characters meet, develop a relationship that leads to a brief affair, and then they move on. But as the film progresses, we see they aren’t the same. Davis is a much nicer guy and Mary is even more of an emotional mess.

Typical Allen films include brilliant directing and writing executed by great actors. The film’s eccentricity is Allen the director’s use of black-and-white and wide screen format. Co-writing credit is shared by Allen and Marshall Brickman who both wrote “Annie Hall”. What is always entertaining about Woody Allen’s writing is how funny his lines can be while revealing deeper layers of his characters. Yet, “Manhattan’s” heart is Tracy who never gets any funny lines, while Allen’s gets all the comedic lines in order to distract from her attempts at intimacy. Hemingway’s performance is really sweet and earned her an Oscar nomination.

Audiences who never saw “Annie Hall” or don’t know anything about Manhattan will likely be lost. Otherwise, the films go hand in hand and are terrific, even if for completely different reasons.