FilmBlather.com

"I've thought of committing suicide, but I've got so many problems, that wouldn't solve them all."

If you had any lingering doubts that Woody Allen is a sinister man bent on world domination, Anything Else should whisk them away. In his twilight years, aware that retirement, death or both may be imminent, Allen understandably thought that in order to proceed with his plan to rule the universe, he would have to find someone to continue his work. Who could he recruit to be his next-generation quote? Who has a persona similarly insecure and neurotic, along with a career in need of rejuvination? Why, Jason Biggs, of course. "Brilliant!" thought Woody. "Jason Biggs shall be my successor!"

And so Allen painstakingly trained his replacement in the secret ways of his timeless comedy. They worked and worked, until Biggs could channel his mentor without so much as breaking a sweat. "It is ready!" shrieked Allen. "Now, to pass the torch." And pass the torch he did, casting his protege in a starring role, but one in which he would be able to work under his master's supervision. He barely even tried to conceal this maneuver, blatantly making his own character the older if not wiser mentor of Biggs'.

Doesn't sound like a particularly brilliant idea, does it? Admittedly, no. But damned if it doesn't work. Biggs, in his first worthwhile performance outside of the American Pie franchise, turns out to be the perfect choice to channel the nebbish, stuttering affability exhibited in every Woody Allen role, yet he remains enough of his own actor for the film to avoid simply giving us two Allens on screen together. It comes pretty darn close, though.

The marketing for Anything Else has intentionally and I think rather cynically excluded Allen himself. His face is nowhere to be found on the poster, and the only mention of him in the main trailer is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it "From Woody Allen" credit towards the end (I hear another trailer did contain his face, but I never saw that one). In light of the declining box office performance of his previous few efforts, this is clearly an attempt to connect the aging auteur to a younger audience. The presence of Biggs and Christina Ricci won't hurt.

The plot is less gimmicky than that of Allen's last three films. Jerry Falk (Biggs), a young and fledgling comedy writer, is so insecure (cowardly?) that he is literally incapable of saying "no" to anyone or anything. His joke of an agent (Danny DeVito) has kept him firmly planted on the bottom rung of his profession, and yet he cannot bring himself to fire the guy. His girlfriend Amanda (Ricci) has refused to have sex with him for two months, but he won't leave. Not even when Amanda announces that her mother (Stockard Channing) is moving into their impossibly small apartment and bringing a piano.

Woody Allen's recent films have essentially been the experience of spending 100 minutes with his stand-up act. I have enjoyed this immensely; many have criticized him for failing to do more. Simply by virtue of sticking himself in the background, he has made Anything Else a richer experience. Biggs is immensely likable in a way that Allen is too subtly creepy to be, and Ricci gives the rare performance that asks us not to like her.

And of course there is Allen himself, delivering gems like "you chose psychoanalysis over real life? Are you learning disabled?" Or my personal favorite, on the subject of his long ago wedding: "I should have known something was wrong when her whole family started dancing around my table, chanting 'we will make him one of us.'" Even when the characters are rather shrill and grating, which is the case in the first act of the film, the jokes are good enough that I didn't care a whit. It baffles me how one can watch that and not enjoy it, and I had the same response to negative reviews of Hollywood Ending. Can none of these people appreciate a masterful one-liner?

It's no coincidence that my review of Hollywood Ending contains the line "perhaps [Allen's] work is a bore to someone who does not enjoy a good one-liner." These movies aren't the best things out there, but they're equal or preferable to nearly all other mainstream comedy. As long as Woody Allen can pick up a pen, use his keyboard or dictate to his secretary, I'll be following him right into the theater. If not him, then Jason Biggs.