Celebrity

Celebrity
by Woody Allen

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• A reporter (Kenneth Branagh) assigned to the celebrity beat finds himself on a collision course with four of the most outrageous people he"s ever met: a sensuous starlet (Melanie Griffith), an-out-of-control movie star (Leonardo DiCaprio), an aspiring actress (Winona Ryder) and a sexy supermodel (Charlize Theron). Together they"re going to take him for an unforgettable walk on the wild side of fam

DVD Reviews of Celebrity

DVD Review: Fame -- It's the name of the game
Summary: 3 Stars

Allen, who at one time had been hailed as a comic genius, began to make serious, European-inspired films in the early 1980s. He is at his best, however, when he makes "warmedys" or "dramedys," movies that walk the tightrope of laughing out loud and meditatively exploring affairs of the heart and mind. In Allen's personal life, which always included the requisite relationship with leading ladies (Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow), he seemed to be following what is mandated of directorial types. His reputation took a violent turn downward with his secret wooing and seducing of Soon-Yi, Farrow's adopted daughter. With his callow explanation of "The heart wants what the heart wants," Allen had unwittingly joined a pantheon of fellow May-December offenders: Roman Polanski, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn. It doesn't matter whether Soon-Yi was of legal age when the romance began, Allen was branded as a child grabber.

This fall from grace and the unwilling attainment of fame on a whole different level is the driving force of "Celebrity." Throughout the film, shallow models, spoiled actresses, high-strung editors, generous producers, and confused writers interact before backdrops of "The Ricki Lake Show" or "Jerry Springer." Look carefully and you'll see Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuco playing on a televison screen, and you'll catch Donald "the Donald" Trump extolling how he plans on buying up St. Patrick's Cathedral to raze it and build some dynamite condo space.

We live in a world where people become PEOPLE magazine cover stories by virtue of being kidnapped, taken hostage, or victimized in some grotesque way. We lionize interns who have achieved notoriety because of their oral skills, rather than their clerical talents. (Just the other day, a 60-plus-year-old woman has come out of the woodwork confessing to being the first First Intern, having taken advantage of executive privilege with JFK.)

Allen's movie delves into the whole culture of making a name for oneself without being able to name what one actually does. Kenneth Branagh, doing a dead-on Woody Allen impression, is a travel writer who has a midlife crisis that dictates he wants, and deserves, more than an occasional byline and tryst in bed with his long-suffering Catholic wife. Judy Davis is the aforementioned spouse, and she does a serviceable job as a woman who is convinced that she doesn't deserve happiness and any morsel of good fortune.

Along the way, the two characters separate and divorce, then become involved with lunatics and lovers played by Charlize Theron, Famke Janssen, Winona Ryder, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Joe Mantegna. Interestingly, Theron (as a self-absorbed, selfish woman who basically has become famous for wearing lingerie on a runway) utters a prior Allen line: She admits to being polymorphously perverse, being able to attain pleasure wherever she's touched. Allen uses that same adjective to describe the Keaton character in "Annie Hall." (And he uses its reverse, "polymorphously insensitive," to razz the Dianne Wiest character in "Hannah.")

Overall, "Celebrity" is not a fabulous movie. It's not consistently funny and it doesn't have the touching moments or sweetness of "Hannah and Her Sisters." This is a text-book movie to view, though, if you want to see how one of the most famous men in American cinema history pontificates about fame and the price one pays to attain it. It will also prompt you to consider whether mass adoration morally bankrupts the seeker, or is one already lacking in good character when the hungry hunt begins?

Description of Celebrity

While Davis is splendid as usual (aside from the requisite nervous breakdown scene she's done one too many times), somebody should have told Branagh to put a kibosh on his Woody Allen imitation, which is so impeccable as to become irritating. His failure in the role, however, isn't entirely his fault, as it's also another in a long line of unlikable male protagonists that Allen has created, as if daring audiences to hate his main characters after loving them in such movies as Manhattan and Annie Hall. He's never more unlikable than in a painful sequence in which he tags along with a spoiled, temperamental teen idol (a shrewd and clever Leonardo DiCaprio) and proves himself the quintessential noodge. Far more enjoyable misadventures with Branagh include Charlize Theron in the film's best performance as a libidinous supermodel with a penchant for echinacea; a stunning Famke Janssen as a successful book editor Branagh almost moves in with; and Winona Ryder, acting like an adult for the first time, as an aspiring actress who catches Branagh's eye more than once. All manage to slip through Branagh's fingers by the end of the film.

Despite the film's lack of focus, Allen aficionados will want this film for at least two wonderful moments, one in which Davis seeks solace from a streetwise fortune teller after she's fleeing her own wedding, and a beautiful nighttime scene in which Branagh romances a captivated Ryder at a subway kiosk. Both episodes prove that Allen, despite the fitful period he's moved into, still has that movie magic. --Mark Englehart