Melinda and Melinda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Melinda and Melinda | |
|---|---|
 Rotten Tomatoes:  (Rotten) |
|
| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Letty Aronson |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Radha Mitchell Chiwetel Ejiofor Will Ferrell Jonny Lee Miller Amanda Peet Chloë Sevigny Wallace Shawn Brooke Smith Larry Pine Steve Carell Daniel Sunjata |
| Music by | Johann Sebastian Bach Johannes Brahms Igor Stravinsky Béla Bartók |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Editing by | Alisa Lepselter |
| Distributed by | Fox Searchlight Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 18 March 2004 |
| Running time | 100 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Melinda and Melinda is a 2004 film written and directed by Woody Allen. It was premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film is set in Allen's favorite location, Manhattan, and stars Radha Mitchell as the protagonist Melinda, in two story lines, one comic, one tragic. The film received a "rotten" [1] rating from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and was a flop in North American theaters, with ticket sales below four million dollars [2]. Worldwide ticket sales were $20.1 million. [3]
The premise of the film is that a group of four writers are conversing over dinner. The question arises: Is life naturally comic or tragic? One of the four proposes a simple story (a distraught woman knocks on a door and disrupts a dinner party) and the two prominent playwrights in the group begin telling their versions of this story, one being comic and one tragic.
The film's dialogue between comedy and tragedy alludes to critical arguments going back to ancient times on the superiority of either art form and the reasons why audiences are drawn to either comedy or tragedy. The film's conceit on comedy—that people love comedy so much because it helps them to escape from the misery of the real world—alludes to the final message of Preston Sturges' classic film, Sullivan's Travels, which dealt with a comedic director attempting to make a serious tragedy, as he finds comedy trite and meaningless. However, the hero discovers that his comedies were more artistic and important to the world than any tragedy he attempts.
Given Allen's constant self-examination through psychoanalysis, the film can be seen as a dialogue between Allen's comedic and serious sides on his artistic choices, or between Allen as comedy maker (as he is best known as a comedic director) and another, serious dramatic filmmaker (perhaps Ingmar Bergman, the serious director whom Allen lionizes throughout his oeuvre).
This is not the first time Allen has intertwined comedic and tragic story lines in one picture. He did so, quite deliberately, in 1989's Crimes and Misdemeanors, the parallel stories of the murderous ophthalmologist and the failed documentary filmmaker counterpointing each other thematically.
Although Radha Mitchell plays Melinda in both versions, no one else is in both. Chloë Sevigny, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chiwetel Ejiofor star with her in the tragedy, while Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet star with her in the comedy.
The film also stars Wallace Shawn as the comic playwright and Larry Pine as the dramatist, and Brooke Smith as Cassie; All three appeared in "Vanya on 42nd Street" (1994, directed by Louis Malle). Steve Carell has a small part as Ferrell's friend in the comedy.
[edit] External links
- Official website for its 2005 release in the United States
- Official website for its initial release in Spain
- Production notes in Spanish (PDF format)
- Melinda and Melinda at the Internet Movie Database
- Melinda and Melinda at Rotten Tomatoes
- Woody Allen interview for Melinda And Melinda
