Anything Else (2003)

It seems like everyone in this movie is supposed to be Woody Allen. They’ve all got the same schtick: overly neurotic, nervous energy, monotonous philosophical drivel. In other movies, his actors can sometimes pull this off naturally (like Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris), but in this one, everyone seems like an overly scripted caricature. Would a young woman really say, “You smell from alcohol”? Does Woody really need the other actors to be so rigid with his dialogue?

Biggs makes a noble effort, but it’s really hard to convincingly pull off Woody’s schtick for these super long takes. Most of the time, he’s a little hard to watch. There is an interesting, BPD-like edge to Ricci’s character, but other than that, she’s just another Woody. And for a love story, there’s not much chemistry between these two. Devito also seems uncomfortable in his role.

I really would have liked to see a few characters who didn’t talk so much. The wall-to-wall dialogue is exhausting. And it gets old having a Holocaust joke in every scene.