“A rainy day in New York”: Woody Allen, between irony and nostalgia

Woody Allen is 83 years old, and much of the world of cinema would like to condemn him to oblivion for alleged infamy (an accusation of pedophilia dating from 1992, never proven but renewed last year at the time of the #Metoo movement. ). Which does not prevent it from turning. Fortunately… “A rainy day in New York” is his 53rd film. Boycotted in the United States, where its release has been blocked by Amazon, both producer and distributor, it is normally released in France after having recently opened the Deauville American Film Festival. Its unconditional, still numerous in France (and of which, I admit, I am) can be delighted. We find him as in himself, film buff, in love with New York, pretty (young) girls, and jazz. Just can we perhaps guess a little more self-mockery, and, above all, melancholy …

Very young, the hero here is called… Gatsby. Not yet magnificent, but elegant and outgoing (this is Thimothée Chalamet, the revelation, two years ago, of “Call me my name”, then of “Lady Bird” the same year), he plays a new daddy’s son. -Yorkis, brilliant, cultivated but very casual, who kills time in the small elitist and quiet university where his mother sent him, very concerned – too much – of his success, by playing poker. He’s in love with the pretty Ashleigh, daughter of an Arizona banker, who writes in the campus newspaper – she wants to become a journalist – and comes, to his delight, to get a date with a new director. – very fashionable Yorker, who is releasing a new movie and has agreed to give him an interview. Gatsby takes the opportunity to organize a romantic weekend for two in Manhattan, which he misses, and which he will be happy to show his sweetheart. From a palace (why not the Pierre? He won a lot of money at poker…) to the bar where he likes to listen to the pianists casually sing old jazz tunes. But all of his plans fell through. Not only because, that weekend, it rains on the Big Apple, which, moreover, does not bother him, on the contrary (especially since he has a weakness for Gene Kelly). But because Ashleigh, this pretty bit of any young girl, all elated by the adventure of her interview which turns to the sensational scoop, fails her by letting herself, to better feed her article, embark from appointment to appointment you with a few professionals of the profession of all ages, sometimes more interested in his youth than in his questions. Follow my gaze …

The film then makes us follow, alternately, the crazy day of Ashleigh and that, less joyful but also full of unforeseen events, of Gatsby. The first is therefore moved, successively, by the old director (a role that did not tempt Woody Allen!) In full depression, judging his film execrable and his career behind him, then by his screenwriter who, through the window of the taxi in which he takes her, what an honor, to watch the film in question, discovers that his wife is cheating on him with his best friend (!) finally by a fop, famous actor of the moment who, crossed by chance while leaving, makes him turn her head, before letting go, naked, in a rain which does not make her sing at all… Not very tender, come to think of it, the picture of Woody’s colleagues and collaborators! The second, who wanted so much to escape his family, and especially the party given that evening by his cumbersome mother, whom he had decided to sulk, finds himself trapped there, and provokes there, without having wanted to. , a hallucinating family happening, as psychoanalytically funny as it is unexpected, and therefore quite… Woodyallenian. While having previously met his ex’s cute and very caustic little sister, whom he snub before letting himself be seduced, she has a dog, and then, she lives in Manhattan, so … By the way, we will have gleaned some beautiful views of New York, admired some sumptuous apartments overlooking Central Park, listened to some notes of jazz (on the piano, not on the clarinet, too bad) rethought a few classics from the golden age of Hollywood (and to Bergman ), dreamed while listening to the bell of the baroque clock of a famous church… and smiled at some tasty Jewish stories.

MY OPINION

It is perhaps a little excessive to speak here of the most successful film by Woody Allen in a long time. But this new opus from a filmmaker who, whatever one says, will remain as one of the greats of the 7th art has the merit, combining lightness and scratches, to rejuvenate the traditional romantic comedy, and to rejuvenate us at the same time , while entertaining us. Not so bad, for an octogenarian pariah …

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