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“Melinda and Melinda”
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 Entertainment
 Art
Directed and written by Woody Allen
Starring Will Ferrell, Amanda Peet, Chloe Sevigny, Wallace Shawn, Radha Mitchell, Jonny Lee Miller and Chiwetel Ejiofor
Rated PG-13 for adult situations involving sexuality, and some substance material.
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After setting a premise that two playwrights – one dramatic, one comic – discuss over lunch the different possibilities of telling the same character’s story, Allen dispenses with the premise and the tones of the concurrent stories end up blending together. You can tell which tale you’re following because the characters are completely different except for the highly dysfunctional Melinda (Radha Mitchell). She handles Allen’s naturalistic dialogue and quirkiness better than anyone else in the film, although she still fails to make us truly like or support either version of Melinda.
This could be Allen’s writing, though. While always giving actors a lot of room to stretch, explore, and expound, he also undermines star power. Will Ferrell as the hapless Hobie in the comic story tries imitating Allen’s classic neurotic for a while, abandons that in favor of a more Tom Hanks romantic comedy approach, but ultimately ends up faceless. And sadly, he’s never outrageous or hilarious – the things that make you want to see Ferrell in a movie. His best line is when talking to Steve Carell (wasted here in a dull role) about how he and his wife hadn’t been having regular sex. “And the last time we did, she just laid there looking like both her parents had died.”
Many of the other key actors speak the sometimes stilted and over-vocabularized dialogue as though they need a couple more rehearsals. Chloe Sevigny, especially, stumbles over a number of large words, although she’s more convincing later in the film when she doesn’t speak as much. Allen clearly tried to use younger actors here – not kids, but adult Gen Xers. Except that how many Gen Xers do you know who are into jazz and opera? Allen’s 20- and 30-somethings too often extol the virtues of their parents’ generation.
On the plus side, Chiwetel Ejiofor exudes charm and intellect as Ellis, Melinda’s romantic interest in the dramatic story, but is again given nothing spectacular enough to make the portrayal memorable. Amanda Peet as Susan, a film director married to Ferrell’s Hobie, ends up being the most pleasing character. The actress nails the romantic comedy elements better than anyone else and handles the sexy scenes with comic delight.
But the biggest failure of Melinda and Melinda is that Allen should have gone a lot farther with the dual playwright premise. One of them’s played by Wallace Shawn, for godssakes, yet he’s only given platitudes to utter. In one early scene the writers talk about manipulating the characters’ jobs, homes, and relationships. The film could have used a lot more of this, a more omnipotent presence throughout.
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