Arts & Events

Woody Allen's Irrational Man is a mildly amusing film (arguably without a single major laugh line) that revisits the director's familiar neurotic landscapes through the filter of Abe Lucas, a depressed, alcoholic philosophy professor. Once a famous author (and equally famous as a womanizer), Abe is now reduced to bouncing between jobs at second-tier universities. In the first scene, he's barreling down a narrow country road to the music of "The In Crowd" with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on a whiskey flask. (Here's an odd take-away from the film: Have you ever noticed how "The In Crowd" resembles the gospel standard, "Wade in the Water"?)

In his first meeting with the administrators at a leafy northeastern college, Abe (mumbled to perfection by Joaquin Phoenix in his patented meta-Brando mode) can barely offer one-word grunts to the effusing academics eager to sing his praises. But, although he's ill at ease and monosyllabic in social settings, when he's in the classroom, he is in his element—discussing and dissing existentialism with an ease and panache that leaves his young students spellbound.

Abe is unusual character. On one hand he is presented as a world-weary professor and, at the same time, a disillusioned social activist who has reportedly spent time trying to save the world's poor in foreign lands and also toke time to comfort the victims of Hurricane Rita in the waterlogged precincts of New Orleans.

It's not enough that Abe can find no comfort in Heidegger or Kant, his social activism has also convinced him that engaging in small acts of altruism to solve big problems is also a useless waste of time. Existence in empty; life is meaningless; Woody Allen is in the house. 

Fortunately, as the script would have it, one of Abe's students is Jill (Emma Stone), who (according to Abe) displays a keen aptitude for advanced philosophical rumination. 

At first blush, it's hard to see what attracts Jill to this wasted, potbellied woe-meister. She tells her family and boyfriend that she finds Abe irresistible because he is "brilliant" and "in need." But even when Abe warms up and mellows out, it may be hard for some viewers to imaging these two actors as real-world lovers. 

One day, Abe and Jill chance to overhear a conversation in a café that triggers the rebirth of Abe's optimism and vitality. If it is futile to undertake small acts in hopes of solving large problems, Abe reasons, maybe it is possible to solve a small problem by staging a big act. 

Later in the film, there is a stand-out dinner table scene where everyone offers a theory to explain a mysterious death—and the audience enjoys a special "seat at the table" because we know "who did it." 

Irrational Man takes a surprising turn by exploring the moral limits of intervention. Can a criminal act be excused if it alleviates the suffering of a poor, unjustly mistreated soul? For most of this debate, Allen allows the audience to champion this radical assumption. But, in the end, all is not well as the escalation eventually leads to a mortal face-off at an elevator. 

In many of Allen's films much of the humor comes from the audience laughing at the self-importance of the characters on the screen. There is more sympathy for the characters in this film—and, consequently, less opportunity for belly laughs at the expense of intellectual pretenders and blowhards. 

To be sure, there are some Allenesque moments near the end when Phoenix and Stone lapse into familiar spasms of mutual sputtering, stuttering incoherence, waving their hands and clutching their heads in helpless frustration. You can hear Woody's voice and see his familiar body language in every gesture. 

In this end, Irrational Man's impact is somewhat compromised by a "writer's stretch." When a story is told in parallel voiceovers, this usually works because it is assumed both parties are offering their competing narratives in the form of a recollection—dictating their stories after-the-fact. In the case of Irrational Man, however, in order for the two narratives to work, they would have to have been caught on-the-fly and archived in The Cloud. 

I can't say more without risking a Spoiler but, if you see the film, you'll see what I mean.