A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

This will be a short review because, well, if you’ve ever seen a Woody Allen film, then you’ve kind of already seen A Rainy Day in New York. Now, that doesn’t make the experience of watching the movie any less enjoyable - it’s a fun film. However, it’s striking to see something that I can only describe as Woody Allen acting through Timothée Chalamet. The mannerisms, the blasé attitude, the dry wit. It’s all there. It’s neither good nor bad, just a bit unsettling to see his story, now re-played with a younger cast (this feels like the Woody of old, the young reporter reminds of Scarlett Johansson in Scoop, etc.). The other players in the cast of the film (Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Liev Schreiber) all deliver pleasant performances. Overall, the film has a lovely levity. It’s like a carriage ride through Central Park, expectedly tacky yet still, somehow, heartening.