Everyone Says I Love You (Woody Allen)

[pro-bassoonist]

Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You a.k.a Tout le monde dit i love you (1996) has received a preliminary release date for the Gallic markets: May 4th. Courtesy of TF1.

Edinburgh University Film Society:
http://www.eufs.org.uk/films/everyon..._love_you.html

Woody Allen doesn't he do films about neurotic, obsessed, sexually and mentally frustrated New Yorkers? Musicals! Surely not.

Woody Allen remains one of the 20th centurys most prolific filmmakers with 26 films to his name so far. Considering that most of his films reveal a certain degree of homogeneity, it surely made sense for the director to carry on telling the stories he loves to tell and, instead, experiment with form rather than content.

The story of Everyone Says I Love You is more of a documentation. It is a portrait of the life of a well-to-do family in New York and how they fall in and out of love. Narrated by Natasha Lyonne, one of the daughters, the film follows the extended family around the world. Despite being characterised as a musical, the musical numbers are just extensions of the individual persona. As each family member reaches a crisis or emotional state they tend to burst into song, a strange reaction perhaps but one that makes for a very amusing film.

Allen's cast ranges far and wide with Drew Barrymore as a pure as snow (!) daughter and Edward Norton playing her awkward suitor in a role one suspects, would normally go to Mr Allen. Goldie Hawn returns to play Allen's ex-wife and Tim Roth makes an appearance as an excon charity case who seduces Drew Barrymore. All the actors excel in their roles, despite having to sing.

To be quite honest, one suspects that Allen is perhaps living out some sort of boyish fantasy by making a musical out of his normally quite difficult stories. Certainly he lives out a fantasy by casting Julia Roberts as the woman he seduces and is forced (oh the horror) to kiss repeatedly.

Everyone Says I Love You is an absolutely superb film and one which you will not see the like of for a long time. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry but above all it'll make you sit up and think `what a superb film'. Not bad for the 26th try.

Pro-B