Celebrity

Director: Woody Allen

Screenwriter: Woody Allen

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen

After a favorable reception from my recent vintage review of Crimes and Misdemeanors, I thought I’d strike while the iron’s hot and review another Woody Allen film I’ve come to appreciate.  Celebrity is a comedy about a very topical phenomenon that has reached an even more unbelievable status than it had 17 years ago when the film was released.  That phenomenon?   That anybody, with a little luck, can achieve a celebrity status and find love. Every character in this film is either famous or in search of fame. Director Woody Allen’s main thought that he is trying to convey is that celebrityism is not achieved by people who earn it or deserve it, but rather by people who are lucky or more fortunate.

The story surrounds two paralleling main characters Lee Simon (Kenneth Branagh) and his ex-wife Robin (Judy Davis). After Lee attends his high school reunion and sees that all of his classmates are boring, old, and balding he begins to go through a mid-life crisis and he realizes that he has never actually felt true love. Accordingly after 16 years of being married to Robin, Lee decides to divorce her. Lee then goes on a quest to find love and fame. Allen places Lee in several situations where he conveys his opinion that we, as a society, do not celebrate the people that we should. First Lee meets the seductive, yet married actress Nicole Oliver (Melanie Griffith), whom he is supposed to write an article about. Nicole takes Lee to the house she lived in as a child, and although she states that she is happily married, she still feels it is ethical to service him orally, as long as she does not sleep with him. She denotes this by saying, “What I do from the nick up, that’s a totally different story.” Here, Allen demonstrates how people who achieve a high celebrity status, come up with a moral system that suites themselves, but not necessarily the rest of society. Her statement, besides having the sexual interpretation, also means that whatever she feels is moral in her mind is therefore justified.  Coincidentally, this echos a similar theme explored in Crimes and Misdemeanors as well.

Next, Lee meets a supermodel (Charlize Theron in one of her first major roles) that is popular solely because of her jaw-dropping good looks. Theron’s character remains nameless throughout the film. Allen purposely did not give her a name in order to stress how people who see these beautiful people are not concerned with who they are, just what they look like. This goes the same for Leonardo DiCapro’s character Brandon Darrow. Although he is a drug abusing, woman beating, hotel-trashing brat with no creative vision, he is still considered a huge star because he has got a pretty face.

After the supermodel leaves Lee, he becomes serious with a more practical and logical woman named Bonnie (Famke Janssen). Bonnie is made to seem virtually perfect; she is beautiful, sexy, intelligent, and nice. However, Lee loses interest in her and feels that he has to move on. The importance of Bonnie’s character, besides the fact that she shows what a shallow and low man Lee is, is that she is responsible for destroying Lee’s ticket to stardom, which is also directly related to the destruction of Lee’s chance for love.

Lee leaves Bonnie for Nola, (Winona Ryder) a woman who has been in and out of his life for some time. Nola is an actress with her own career on her mind. She is not willing to commit to a relationship and can not reach an emotional bond with Lee because she is on her own quest for fame, much like Lee.

Lee’s acts are strongly contradicted by the transformation of his ex-wife Robin. Robin, at first, is shown as a shy, sexually frustrated, Catholic woman. After Lee leaves her, Robin’s friend books her a session with a famous plastic surgeon that ends up examining her while he talks to a TV camera and interviewer. Robin’s transformation begins here when she meets Tony (Joe Mantegna) a television producer. Tony shapes her and makes her into a celebrity reporter on an Entertainment Tonight like show. No sequence shows Robin’s changed lifestyle better that the one near the film’s end where Robin is shown rushing around the tables of a restaurant, interviewing various stars. She eventually stops and talks to Donald Trump. Trump tells her that he is going to tear down a cathedral and put up a “really tall building.” At the beginning of the film, Robin’s Catholic upbringing would have come through and caused her to become highly upset by this statement, however, here Robin simply says, “Oh, that’s nice.” Here we see that although Robin has accepted love and been rewarded by fame, she has lost her identity.

Robin attains fame without even looking for it while Lee never reaches a celebrity status after all of his attempts. This again restates the film’s statement that love and fame are attained purely by luck.  Allen drives his theme home in an ending scene that is crucial in establishing the film’s meaning.  First of all it re-introduces the characters to the audience, so we can see where many of them finally end up.  Allen’s techniques used throughout the entire film prove to be some of his most ambitious. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s eloquent shooting in black and white requires a creative use of lighting. The music is always soft and relaxing. Beethoven’s 5^th and the “…So You Want to be in Pictures,” song are heard throughout the film in different situations. One more solid technique is Allen’s relaxed cutting rhythm throughout the film. Most of the film’s shots are long and relaxed. There are very few short or fast paced scenes.  Allen seems to have a lot to say on this subject and with a running time of 113 minutes, this is one of his longest films.

At the end, this is another vibrant and beautifully rich film from Woody Allen both contextually and artistically.  His career is one of reinvention and sometimes that can result in films that are a little ahead of their time.  This is likely the case with Celebrity.  Agree or disagree with Allen’s theory on love and fame, but to me, this film plays much better today than it did in the late 90s.  A-

Celebrity is rated R and has a running time of 1 hour and 53 minutes.