Anything Else

Movie: Anything Else
Reviewed By: M

Cast:

Woody Allen .... David Dobel
Jason Biggs .... Jerry Falk
Christina Ricci .... Amanda
Stockard Channing .... Paula
Danny DeVito .... Harvey
Jimmy Fallon .... Bob Styles

Summary:

A young comedy writer, Jerry (Jason Biggs), meets an older fellow writer (Allen) and their relationship grows stronger as Jerry asks him for advice to help him through his problems. Jerry lives a life that no one would envy him for with his difficult girlfriend (Ricci), her mom (Channing) who live with them and his bad manager(DeVito).

Critique:

There haven’t been many good comedies in the past few years. Most movies try to use physical comedies excessively to get a laugh or just have either a bad plot or no plot at all. Anything Else is a good comedy and probably the best in 2003 but that doesn't say much due to the lack of good comedies.

Woody Allen teams up with American Pie's Jason Biggs in this movie and they make a very good team together. Allen plays a 60 years old paranoid school teacher who is trying to make it as a comedy writer but is too afraid to quit his teaching job. While Biggs plays a 21 years old comedy writer who has a lot of problems with his life and finds Allen's character comforting and persuasive so he goes to him for advice. There conversations are filled with funny dialogs and a lot of jokes, usually by Allen's character, possibly too many.

Jerry’s (Biggs) main problem throughout the movie is his girlfriend Amanda (Ricci). They have good chemistry together and have some of the funniest parts in the movie. With Ricci's unique and annoying character, you will definitely hate her by the end of the movie. Danny DeVito is also in this movie as Jerry's manager but doesn't really deliver anything special. Another misleading advertisement was listing Jimmy Fallon as a star in this movie when he only had about 3 lines and 5 minutes of screen time.

Compared to new comedies, Anything Else is very good but falls short as a movie. It's quite messy and doesn't have a clear conclusion. It just feels like it asks more questions then it answers and isn't really focused. It is a very funny movie, filled with good quotes and some interesting dialog but at the end you just feel like it didn't deliver a message or make a statement. Also i wasn't really sure why this movie is rated R because there is nothing that would require that in my opinion just some brief drug use and sexual humor.

Anything Else is a funny movie with decent plot and good acting but no clear lesson.

Rating: 7/10
Runtime: 108 min.
MPAA: Rated R for a scene of drug use and some sexual references.
"Anything Else" opens nationwide Friday September, 19, 2003.