‘A Rainy Day in New York’ Feels Like an Imposter Woody Allen Movie
Could there be a cabal of Young Turk filmmakers out there imitating Woody Allen? Is it possible they convinced name movie stars like Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, and Liev Schreiber to star in a purported Allen project that the writer/director actually had nothing to do with? The prospect is unlikely. But given the disinformation, subterfuge, disappointment, and mimicry that currently clouds modern life, is it impossible? Also, how else to explain a movie like A Rainy Day in New York which makes one pine for even subpar latter-day Allen efforts like Scoop or his miniseries Crisis in Six Scenes?
Originally set for release in 2019, the movie is now getting a somewhat grudging release in a handful of American theaters, which seems about right. The story feels like a faded Xerox of an idea somebody once scribbled down on a napkin for an Allen-like comedy, only featuring little of the filmmaker’s wit or romanticism.
The setup begins somewhat promisingly. Chalamet plays Gatsby, the scion of a wealthy Manhattan family who is shambling through an unwanted education at what is “supposed to be a very good liberal arts college.” While his keeping-up-appearances mother (Cherry Jones) wants him to indulge in only the finest things, he would rather watch old movies and play poker. Being also an impulsive romantic, he decides to use some of the $20,000 he just won at cards to show his girlfriend Ashleigh (Elle Fanning) a fancy weekend in Manhattan, where she has an assignment to interview a famous director for the school paper. That means staying at the Pierre (not Allen’s own hangout the Carlyle, too close to his home and hard to avoid dropping in one his mother’s fall salon), seeing Hamilton, going to Central Park, and generally living it up. Ashleigh, a pretty blonde debutante from Tucson with permanent stars in her eyes, cannot wait.
What follows has all the makings of a madcap misadventure. When Ashleigh meets her director (Schreiber, grumbling and wonderfully pretentious), his crippling insecurities set off a chain reaction for her that quickly spirals into a weekend-long escalation of booze-fueled misunderstandings. Meanwhile, an increasingly disgruntled Gatsby kills time waiting for her and running off at the mouth to anybody who will listen. Each has run-ins with potential love interests under the weekend-long rainstorm that adds none of the romantic spark Allen seems to have intended. Ashleigh is hit on by a series of men, most ardently a movie star played with admirable dash and verve by Diego Luna. For his part, Gatsby has a series of tete-a-tetes with Chan (Selena Gomez), the younger sister of an ex-girlfriend. Neither plot strand ultimately holds much interest.
Gomez stands out for her snappy and confident delivery of Allen’s overly mannered screwball comedy dialogue (“real life is fine for people who can’t do any better”). But set against Chalamet’s high-strung and somewhat tone-deaf reading, nothing quite connects. Similarly with Ashleigh’s storyline, even though Fanning does great work with a character written with deep condescension — oddly for Allen, the only interesting figures in the movie are actually the women — because the movie never settles on a tone, the comedy of her increasingly manic escapades fails to land.
Not unusually for post-Vicky Christina Barcelona Allen, A Rainy Day in New York feels slapdash from a writing perspective, as though he could have stood to give the screenplay another pass or two for punching up. More unexpected, though, is just how unfinished and often downright dull the movie is. Jumpy and strung together, it makes little effort to make everything feel of a piece. Some of the performers seem to think they are playing farce, while others are hitting a romantic comedy note, with the result that they are all ultimately wrong. Intended as in part yet another love letter to New York (and there is nothing wrong with that), the movie rushes through its glamorous settings without taking any time to luxuriate in them.
Without that, we are left with listening to Gatsby speechify at length about just how much more down to earth he is than the world he was raised in. A love of Turner Classic Movies, Charlie Parker, and playing high-stakes poker is somehow supposed to mark him as a man of the people. Even though Jones is given the opportunity to knock Gatsby down a peg or two in a cuttingly-delivered yet somewhat baffling third-act monologue, he remains a more sour and self-satisfied figure than the movie seems to appreciate.
A Rainy Day in New York is filled with Woody Allen signatures, from the call-outs to pre-war jazz to the frantic sidewalk confrontations about love and infidelity. But they all feel jumbled together without much rhyme or reason, little sense of character or purpose, and precious few laughs. In the end, that might be the proof that the movie is in fact the work of Allen himself. Imposters would likely have tried harder.
Title: A Rainy Day in New York
Director/writer: Woody Allen
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Liev Schreiber, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Rebecca Hall
Studio: MPI Media
Rating: PG-13
Year: 2019
