Review: Irrational Man

Woody Allen's done it again, folks. And by that, I mean he's produced another film. Whether it's good or bad is an entirely different doing, and as you can guess, this one doesn't come close to competing with his better works. Laced with a voice-over narrative akin to a psychology textbook, IRRATIONAL MAN tells the story of a man who considers committing murder to give his life purpose.

Jill and Roy (Emma Stone and Jamie Blackley) are your typical, middle-class college students at Braylin University -- in fact, they are stereotypical: they don't have too much characterization past their fancy sweaters and family dinners. But we do know that they are in love, and the rumors of the dashing and intellectually cutting new philosophy professor give way to Roy joking that Jill is going to develop a crush.

And when we first meet Professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), the first instinct is to completely understand why it was a joke: the rumors that the man is a genius but always looks like he's wasted is not too far from the truth. Abe blunders onto the scene with jutting gut and the ever-present single malt scotch in his hand, jaded and without direction. But the man can argue philosophy, which is apparently enough to get all the ladies riled up (or at least the two ladies featured in this film). Fellow professor Rita (Parker Posey) can't get enough of him, cheating on her husband with Abe as he moans and groans about the lack of meaning in life with phrases like "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom" and his romantic-bordering-suicidal demeanor.

Despite the complete implausibility of Abe's likeability (no, Woody Allen, you cannot justify a character's likeability by saying that "everyone likes him"), Jill develops a deep attraction to him. They begin spending a lot of time together, causing Roy to become jealous.

And then one day at a diner, they overhear the heartbreaking story of a woman who is about to lose custody of her kids because of the corrupt Judge Spangler (Tom Kemp). The woman makes an offhand comment that she hopes the judge dies of a heart attack, and Abe immediately becomes enraptured by the idea of helping this woman by serving the judge a dose of justice. In his head, he argues that the judge deserves to die, and begins scheming what he considers to be the perfect murder.

From that point on, the plot actually does putter along quite nicely, combining the likes of "Crime and Punishment" with Abe's TAXI DRIVER-esque mentality; but its basis is absolutely ridiculous. The film follows true Woody Allen form, riddled with psychoses and those familiar themes for women -- it wouldn't be a Woody Allen film if every woman didn't have an affair. I just wish that there was more to their character beyond the men they're interested in.

There were a couple of really entertaining sequences, most notably the scenes in which Jill begins to piece together what is going on. Both Phoenix and Stone perform excellently, with some pretty natural chemistry on screen. But do the positive notes in this film outweigh the bad? For me, it's a toss up -- if you have a couple hours to kill, I'd say why not, but don't necessarily expect this review to be proven wrong. IRRATIONAL MAN is now playing at the Midtown Cinema!