HOLLYWOOD ENDING (2002)

Can we imagine any other genius filmmaker of Hollywood who publicly calls his cinema ‘an artistic masturbation on screen’? With all his eccentric, narcissist, hypochondriac, neurotic self that throws oxymoron and one liners, Woody Allen is still a darling man of Hollywood making cinema of his kind; an absolutely stress removing treat. Like most of his films, Woody played himself here as Val Waxman, a filmmaker who got an offer to direct a film after a decade long period and it came from his ex wife and his rich financer fiancé. The film is about New York City and who knows streets of NY better than Woody! But at this very juncture he suddenly turned psychosomatically blind as some strange way of God. He doesn’t want to lose the chance to regain his name and fame as filmmaker and so he goes on directing the film on sets with his blindness on, faking that he’s alright.

Hardcore Woody fans may find much repetition in theme and plot with common traits of messed up marital relationships, caricaturized characters, stretched up situations and over the top drama but than even excess is fun to watch when there’s somebody unique like Woody doing it on screen. It’s quite an average Woody but one can’t deny his fine writing skills. The conversation on restaurant table between Woody’s split self persona and his ex wife is just outrageous fun to watch. Can’t resist sharing few lines here:

Ellie: Our marriage wasn’t going anywhere.

Val: Where do you want it to go? Where do marriages go? After a while they just lay there. That’s the thing about marriage.

Ellie: We had sex. But we never talked.

Val: Sex is better than talk. Ask anybody in this bar. Talk is what you suffer through so you can get to sex.

Ratings-7/10