Elle lights up the screen, and is effortless with Woody’s wit, and makes you wish she was in the scenes she’s not in. DELIGHTFUL. Selena... fantastic, a movie star. Beautiful film.
Woody as always, is the leader in how to make a film- brilliantly in tune, clear, and free of the hand of worry if he’s masculine, and worry to be right, or what is going to play to the optics of what would be valued as trendy or current. He is TIMELESS which is why ALL of his films will be classic as long as people will have the ability to view film.
As an artist, Woody’s comfort in his gender is what most men could only dream of being. Woody has broken the code on being a male artist. Name one other that isn’t busy trying to prove he’s a man- which just makes them a major yawn, yet they play into the limits of people, and often get revered as quality due to marketing, and our own gender hangups. A gun involved and ridiculous layers above the human emotion, a terrible standard that is a substandard can often feel like the most pervasive product. But there’s Woody. Escape, reflection, of us. Cinema at its best.
A Rainy Day in New York constantly tickles from beginning til end, which is one reason it’s great, but what really makes it great is it’s a film that is a melancholy time capsule from a time before we all lost our ever living minds. Before Trump made us fight. Before #MeToo eradicated discerning thought. From a time when there was a variety of emotions other than angered and appalled. A Rainy Day in New York is from a time when humans were still human. The sloppy prior events to now, may have brought some much needed accountability, albeit selective outrage, but unlike what we see in this film, humans have also lost any ability to not destroy what makes us beautiful and passionate... poetic and romantic- unafraid to feel. A Rainy Day in New York is a love letter to yesteryear that didn’t realize it was bidding adieu to everything before the apocalypse of the human spirit.
In this film as in all of Woody’s films, regardless if some are better then others, he is conscious of humanity in a way few have the ability to reflect. He’s smart beyond measure, not self conscious, and knows us in a way we could learn from. He is us. This film is us. The fact that Woody is a threat to others lies in other’s insecurity while being the only reason he’s run the cycle of humanity lifting him, and then exhausted by it, and now ready to minimize his work, jump on a band wagon, Scarlet Letter him, The Crucible him, trying to define his films as less then they are. A Rainy day in New York is better then 99.9% of what is out there, including what we’ve deemed as great.
A Rainy Day in New York is a good film if you like that sort of thing.
