Celebrity (1998)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

Celebrity is a subject that Woody Allen has strong and somewhat contradictory feelings about, going by two of his stand-out films of the 1980s - Stardust Memories (1980) and Zelig (1983).  On the eve of the new millennium, he made this the central theme of another film, completing what may be considered a loose trilogy.  This time round, Allen appears not only disenchanted but frankly disgusted with the whole notion of celebrity, and his revulsion for the celebrity culture that has arisen in recent years (the result of a spectacularly successful act of mass mind-control perpetrated by greedy and cynically exploitative media executives) is succinctly expressed in the film's most apposite line: You can learn a lot about a society by who it chooses to celebrate.

Allen's motivation for making the film is no doubt laudable but, unlike his two previous bouts of casual celebrity bashing, here he falls down badly in the execution.  Unwilling to play the lead (presumably he felt he was too old for the part), he passes it on to Kenneth Branagh, who, instead of creating a convincing character, is content with trotting out a bad and far from flattering Woody Allen impression.  Branagh's grating performance has the effect of not only preventing us from sympathising with the protagonist (another familiar Allenesque loser, equipped with enough neuroses and self-doubt to scupper the entire US navy), but it painfully accentuates the shortcomings of the film's half-baked screenplay.  Celebrity lacks the coherence and sustained forwards momentum of other, far better Woody Allen films, and in the end it feels like a lazily cobbled together potpourri of well-worn ideas, occasionally brilliant and insightful, momentarily laugh-out-loud entertaining, but for the most part a slow and pretty aimless trudge across all-too-familiar territory.

Kenneth Branagh's risibly lame input is marginally surpassed by that of his co-star Judy Davis, who likewise makes the faux pas of basing her character's persona on Allen, with the result that the leads appear to be going head-to-head in some kind of freakish Woody Allen look-a-like contest.  Were it not for the fact that Celebrity was attractively photographed in stunning black and white, by former Ingmar Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist, and has such a strong supporting cast, with brief but memorable turns from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Winona Ryder (and amusing cameos by other notables such as Donald Trump), it would be a pretty daunting prospect for even the most ardent of Woody Allen admirers.  The episode with DiCaprio (who is both hilarious and shockingly convincing as your archetypal celebrity brat) kick-starts the film at the precise moment when your interest in it has touched rock bottom, but it is questionable whether this alone is enough to redeem an otherwise middling offering from a writer-director who is starting to appear grimly depassé and a tad complacent.

Film Synopsis

In New York City, 40-year-old Lee Simon is coping badly with a midlife crisis after breaking up with his equally neurotic wife Robin.  Feeling that they married too young, Lee and Robin are eager to make a fresh start but both lack the confidence to strike out on their own and start a new life.  While his ex-wife goes on retreat, Lee, a failed novelist, scrapes a living as a travel writer whilst trying to find an A-list movie star willing to endorse his screenplay.  Lee has aspirations of becoming a rich and famous Hollywood screenwriter, but in the course of a series of romantic adventures and brushes with celebrity he begins to question whether this is what he really wants.  Meanwhile, Robin has found herself the ideal partner, in handsome television producer Tony Gardella, and through him she finds the fame that has eluded Lee as a TV interviewer...