MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (Directed by and starring Woody Allen. With Diane Keaton, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda)

The most common complaint about Woody Allen’s continuing exploration of film-making and the middle-class psyche is that, really, we preferred his early, funny ones. Yet now that Woody has heeded the criticism and made a genuinely funny film, written with Sleeper, Annie Hall and Manhattan collaborator Marshall Brickman and co-starring his most notable comedic partner, Diane Keaton, audiences (in America at least) stayed away in droves. Perhaps it is all just a joke too late for Woody, who risks being remembered more for naming his son Satchel and sleeping with his girlfriend’s daughter than for his unsurpassable way with a one-liner.

It has to be said, he hasn’t really helped himself. Although Manhattan Murder Mystery is essentially a light-hearted comedy thriller, he has inexplicably chosen to shoot it in the cinema verité style of Husbands And Wives. There the shaky hand-held cameras and rough edges seemed to suit the probing investigation of the protagonists’ lives, but here it just seems like poor production values. It is as if he has found an easy way to shoot, and can’t be bothered doing it properly anymore.

There is still a sense that the jokes are a sop to his public, and even in this happy cross between The Thin Man and Rear Window, with Woody and Diane sparring as married amateur sleuths, he seems more interested in the underlying tensions between the various couples than in the delivery of his gags.

Which is a pity, because the gags are good, the performances classily mature, the relationships neatly defined and the balance of mystery and comedy near perfect. Manhattan Murder Mystery is a true throwback to Woody’s golden age, although the most lasting impression may be a slightly unsettling one: hasn’t Woody got old? Maybe we all have.