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Is life essentially comic or tragic? That’s the question posed here by writer-director Woody Allen, attempting something new in form and structure but falling back on familiar gags and character types in the telling of this two-layered story. As always, the principals live and work in New York City and belong to that elite, insular group of media types, showbiz folk, and pointy-headed academics employed by Allen so frequently. The movie’s central debate is mulled over during dinner at a colorful Manhattan eatery, as a man relates a tale to two writers and asks, "Comic, or tragic?" In the tragic version, Melinda ({|Radha Mitchell|}) is a mentally ill divorcée who, after abandoning her family, turns to old friend Laurel (Chloe Sevigny) and her husband, Lee (Jonny Lee Miller), for aid and comfort. She shows up at their apartment in the middle of a dinner party thrown to impress a producer from whom Lee hopes to get acting work. The comic version makes Melinda (Mitchell again) a free spirit who comes between independent film producer Susan (Amanda Peet) and her husband, Hobie (Will Ferrell), a marginally talented actor hoping to land a role in his wife’s latest project. It’s the latter character -- played with uncharacteristic restraint by Ferrell -- that serves as Allen’s mouthpiece; had this film been made 15 years earlier, Allen himself would have portrayed Hobie. That he doesn’t is one of the reasons this film stands out among recent Allen efforts. Even if Melinda and Melinda fails to clear the bar set by such classics as Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters, it finds the writer-director still open to innovation, and still capable of genuinely funny lines, such as when Peet shuts up Hobie with: “Of course we communicate. Now can we not talk about it anymore?” Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

While Woody Allen has long fused comedy and drama in his films, he embraces the two styles in a new and unusual way in this feature. Sy (Wallace Shawn) is enjoying dinner with some friends when they begin debating the nature of the tragic and the humorous. Sy, observing that a very fine line separates the two, decides to demonstrate this notion by showing how the same essential story can be either funny or sad depending on the way certain elements are handled; for the rest of the film, we jump back and forth between two versions of the story of Melinda (Radha Mitchell), a young woman with some serious problems in her life. In the tragic version, Melinda crashes a dinner party thrown by old friends Laurel (Chloë Sevigny) and Lee (Jonny Lee Miller). When she arrives, Melinda is distraught and under the influence of pills and alcohol, much to the annoyance of Lee, an actor hoping to impress a producer who is one of his guests. After a bad breakup with her husband, Melinda lost custody of her children and came to New York City, where she became involved with Ellis Moonsong (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a handsome and well-mannered composer whose promises to her proved to be worthless. Meanwhile, on the funny side of town, Melinda shows up dazed and confused at the home of Susan (Amanda Peet) and Hobie (Will Ferrell), who are in the midst of a dinner party. Learning about the sad state of Melinda's love life after divorcing her husband and losing custody of her children, Susan decides to play Cupid and fix her friend up with a well-to-do dentist. However, neither Susan nor Melinda are aware that there is another man deeply interested in the troubled divorcée -- Hobie. Melinda and Melinda also features Josh Brolin, Vinessa Shaw, and noted theatrical director Gene Saks. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 024543189299
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1), Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Pan & Scan, Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Mono
• Language: English, Français, Español
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 1:39:00
• Sales Rank: 11,026

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