Irrational Man (2015)

Film: Irrational Man (2015)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley
Director: Woody Allen
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

There are very few people I see literally every film that they make.  For actors, basically if your name isn't Brad Pitt or Meryl Streep, I am not giving you a blank check.  Directors, however, I'm more likely to see all of their work, and this is particularly true of Woody Allen.  Based both on a tradition of seeing all of his films every year with a friend from college and having so many good memories of his films through my cinematic life, I trudge to Woody Allen movies without any regard for the reviews, who is starring, and really what the plot of the film is.  Like many Woody Allen fans, I cannot quit him and even when I dislike a movie, I'm thankful that at 79 he's still prolific enough to come out with a film each year.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Abe Lucas (Phoenix), a washed-up philosophy professor who has something of a following within the academic community even though he is a drunk and a massive blowhard.  He descends on one of those small college towns where everything seems to revolve around the university and everything looks quaint but in a polished, Woody Allen-style way (everyone has books littered along their shelves and lives as if they're in Manhattan even though they're in the Midwest-there's no McDonald's drive-through here).  The film follows him as he befriends and later seduces a young Philosophy major Jill (Stone) while also romancing a bored housewife teacher Rita (Posey).  Like every Allen film, about halfway through the film we learn that there will be a twist, and here it's a doozy of one: Abe decides to kill a random stranger he is convinced is a bad judge.  Once he kills him, though, his attitude toward life changes (he is no longer depressed) and also cannot help but being loose-lipped about his actions.

The film is at its best when it's trying to comment on its characters, particularly Jill and Abe.  The film is interesting in that, for those familiar with Allen, it's hard to tell where the pretension ends and Woody is just mocking his characters rather than joining in with them.  Phoenix, gruff and sexy in a primal way, is not your typical Woody proxy, but does master Allen's script in terms of condescension.  There's so many scenes where he's playing oral masterbation with those around him, citing Simone de Beauvoir and Nietzsche, and name-checking basically every well-known 20th Century philosopher, if only to try and impress those around him who dare not question his ascertions for fear of being found a fool.  Stone is also strongest when she's clearly infatuated with him, constantly talking about Abe or finding ways to work him into conversations without ever actually engaging with him on an intellectual level.  She's a fourth-year student who is likely headed to Oxford the following year, and yet she soaks up all of his speeches and intellectual hypotheses without so much as a second thought.  If it weren't Allen who was writing this (who has a long history of writing strong parts for women), I'd be a little nervous about the sexist overtones, but I think he's just making a commentary on a certain type of student (regardless of gender) who forms an attachment on a professor that they cannot rationalize.

These little moments, though, don't add enough to make up for the film's serious flaws.  I understand now why Emma Stone was of so much interest to Woody Allen, particularly considering that she seems to be a hybrid of his two greatest muses (Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow), but either he has just been landing her in the wrong scripts or she doesn't fit with his directorial style, as this ends up being one of her worst onscreen outings.  While I will admit I ran counter to most when I said that she found a groove in Magic in the Moonlight (even though the age difference and chemistry between she and Firth was questionable), here I'm with the consensus-Stone is just plain boring and repetitive as Jill.  We have absolutely no sense of what she thinks, and for the end of the film to work, we need that.  Phoenix is better, but his character changes are too severe, and too manic-we have to rely on the silliness of the plot (that he actually thought he should randomly murder a man for the first time at 40, seemingly out-of-the-blue) rather than getting aided from the screenplay.  The story is easy to see through, as well, as we all know Woody well enough now that there's no Match Point-style twists here to really shock us.  All-in-all, it's something that you will smile through if you're a Woody aficionado, knowing the nods to longtime fans and to his collective filmography, but knowing that next year will hopefully be better.  For those that are apathetic or allergic to Allen, this is not going to help with the convincing.