Celebrity

Few experiences in life are as disconcerting as watching a Woody Allen movie with no Woody Allen in it, but we'd do well to get used to it.

It would appear that Woody has finally taken to heart the near-unanimous critical consensus that, while his quill remains as sharp as ever, his features have become increasingly wizened with age - to the point where he looks absolutely ridiculous chasing young women like Helena Bonham-Carter and Mira Sorvino around the screen.

Kenneth Branagh it is, then, who steps up to the oche and assumes the Woody role, fitting fairly snugly into the skin of the fortysomething neurotic nervous-wreck character we've followed for decades.

Whatever you might have heard, Celebrity is a far more intelligent and enjoyable movie than its recent reviews would suggest. Woody Allen has never written a script that wasn't at least halfway funny, and Branagh provides a pretty competent substitute for the real thing, mastering every nervous tic down to a fine art as his character - celebrity novelist Lee Simon - endures a mid-life crisis, precipitated by his boredom with his wife (Judy Davis) and their lacklustre sex life. He dumps her and proceeds to embark on affairs with Charlize Theron, Melanie Griffith, Famke Janssen and Winona Ryder, none of which serve to make him any happier or more contented, while his jilted wife quickly finds fame, bliss and fulfilment with a suave, almost saint-like Joe Mantegna.

Though nominally an examination of the fame game, the movie has no particular message to impart - but it throws up plenty of sharp observations about the elusive nature of happiness and the transience of love, while the black-and-white filming lends a touch of class and an array of impressive cameos keep it consistently entertaining.

Leonardo Di Caprio atones for Titanic with a brilliant ten-minute cameo as a hell-raising, coke-crazed young actor who trashes his hotel rooms and his women, Charlize Theron's performance is worth the price of admission, and although the frankly dull Davis/Mantegna subplot is accorded too much attention, there isn't much else wrong with Celebrity.

Woody Allen may long since have lost the goodwill of the media, but his fans know he can be relied upon every time, and he's delivered again.