Melinda und Melinda

In life, you can't just rub a lamp and make a wish. Screenwriters are people who can do whatever they want with the audience. And with this fact, Woody created two sub-personalities characterizing him at the beginning of the film. After all, he can turn a single subject into a very personal and unsettling drama (unrequited relationships are much warmer than those dreamed of), as well as a romantic comedy full of nervous remarks and confused realizations. In this case, Will Ferrell is a very faithful copy of Allen's younger film self, and his verbal machine gun fits perfectly with the usual discrediting of unwanted competitors. It just proves that the Master has learned that it is not necessary to cast respected theater or lesser-known but more valuable actors, and that when he discovers talent in purely commercial performers, it turns out even more briskly. (04.12.2007)

I self-critically admit that the smooth-talking Jew got me again and his relationship conversation film satisfied me much more than most of his films I've recently watched, perhaps with the exception of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. This film seems more interesting and likable to me than, for example, Anything Else, Scoop, or Shadows and Fog. It is part of a group of films where the director experiments, and just as he experimented with atmosphere in Shadows and Fog, here he plays with genre fundamentals and confronts approaches applied in the comedy and tragedy genres. His Melindas are not identical women and their stories do not feature identical characters, only the initial model situation is the same. While the "tragic" Melinda is a typical hysteric, and as such, she leaves behind only fires and ruins due to her unrealistic ideas about love relationships and is doomed to constant failures in building relationships with those around her, her comedic counterpart is significantly more likable and realistic. Because they are not identical stories, the film is more interesting from a narrative perspective as well. The charming Australian Radha Mitchell also significantly contributes to the film earning a fourth star. Her dual role is one of the greatest acting opportunities in her career so far. Overall impression: 75%. (15.06.2010)

Bisher habe ich 29 Filme von Woody Allen gesehen. Melinda und Melinda ist definitiv der schwächste von ihnen. Der Film ist langwierig. Es wäre besser gewesen, die lustige und dramatische Handlung zweimal als eine Geschichte zu erzählen; nicht als zwei unterschiedliche Geschichten mit derselben Hauptfigur. Der Film wird nur von Will Ferrell gerettet, für den Allen das Beste geschrieben hat. Über die Rollen von Steve Carell, Amanda Peet und Josh Brolin habe ich mich gefreut, aber… Aber bei Woody Allen habe ich mich noch nie so sehr gelangweilt. Auch nicht bei Innenleben. (26.12.2014)

My next meeting with Woody Allen, whom I neglected for many years. I don't know if it was intentional, but I definitely managed to do it quite well. After a relatively new film like "Midnight in Paris," I looked back a little into the past, but not by that much. "Melinda and Melinda" is a film that definitely belongs to Allen's more recent work, which, among other things, is characterized by the fact that the creator himself hardly acts in it anymore. "Melinda and Melinda" is exactly that case. It is a film about human relationships and how individuals interfere in each other's lives. The film is quite innovative. In reality, we follow small groups of people in a restaurant who talk about how a story can look. There are two writers, and each has a different opinion on the story. One sees it as a comedy, the other as a tragedy. And so we watch how the story develops. One comically, the other tragically. It is as if Allen had an idea in his head that was not fully developed, and so he tried it out with real actors and made a recording of it. The story is incomplete, collecting various ideas and perspectives. Although Woody Allen tried a slightly different approach, it simply didn't work out in this case. Woody Allen said that he has ideas that he will never have time to realize in his lifetime. If he had tried a different one of those ideas instead of "Melinda and Melinda," I think he would have enriched cinema by something more. There are funny scenes, there are dramatic scenes, but there is no cohesive element that puts it together in a decent way. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/10/prach-uspesna-pokracovani-animaku.html (01.03.2013)