Style: Comedy
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Tilly, Chazz Palminteri, Jack Warden, Rob Reiner, Mary-Louise Parker
Working Time: 98 minutes
Synopsis: In New York Metropolis of the late Nineteen Twenties, up-and-coming author David Shayne (John Cusack) is determined to have his newest play funded. His producer Julian Marx (Jack Warden) secures backing from mobster Nick Valenti (Joe Viterelli), given that Nick’s talentless girlfriend Olive (Jennifer Tilly) lands a significant function. When rehearsals begin, Nick appoints his goon Cheech (Chazz Palminteri) to regulate Olive, who nonetheless encourages the lustful consideration of past-his-prime and overeating actor Warner Purcell (Jim Broadbent). In the meantime, David is falling in love along with his main woman Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest), whereas Cheech begins to make unsolicited options to enhance the play.
What Works Nicely: Woody Allen’s combination of behind-the-curtain chaos, mobster violence, and artist insecurities is a blast of enjoyable leisure. The script maintains razor sharpness and constantly finds quirks and twists inside personalities and occasions, together with Cheech masterfully gliding from edge-of-the-screen non-entity to a central character. Allen extracts deliciously loquacious performances from each Dianne Wiest (a fading diva determined for continued relevance) and Jennifer Tilly (a gangster’s moll ruthlessly exposing her deficiencies) as diametric opposites exploiting the stage for self-delusion. The conflict between civility and crime nurtures commentary about academia and actuality, and the separation of artwork and artist.
What Does Not Work As Nicely: In a uncommon instance of a film that might have benefitted from being longer, each Rob Reiner (as Sheldon Flender, a prolific however never-published playwright) and Mary-Louise Parker (as David Shayne’s spouse) deserved bigger roles.
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