A Muted Reception For Allen’s Latest Film
This month, 13 movie theaters around the United States showed “Coup de Chance,” a brisk French-language thriller about a bored wife who cheats on her wealthy, aloof husband with an old classmate, triggering fatal consequences.
Minus the opening credits and certain trademark elements — jazzy score, moneyed setting, dry cosmopolitan banter — a typical viewer could watch it without knowing it is the 50th film directed by Woody Allen. The language, the absence of the kinds of American stars that typically fill his casts, the low-key reception: All suggest the awkwardness surrounding this new release by a filmmaker as distinctive as he is polarizing.
“We just continue to do what we’ve been doing, and we’re happy that it’s opening,” said Letty Aronson, Mr. Allen’s sister, who has produced his films since 1994. She said the film was financed in Europe, declining to disclose its backers.
Mr. Allen, 88, has a more than half-century career as a writer and director of classics such as “Annie Hall” (1977) and “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989). A late period commencing with 2005’s “Match Point” has featured collaborations with stars like Scarlett Johansson, Timothée Chalamet and Cate Blanchett, who won an Oscar for “Blue Jasmine” (2013). Mr. Allen’s 2011 comedy “Midnight in Paris” brought him his fourth Oscar, for original screenplay, and took in more than $150 million worldwide.
But for many, affection for his movies has been overshadowed
by allegations against him. In 1992, his daughter Dylan Farrow, then 7, said Mr. Allen had sexually assaulted her, months after he had begun a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the 21-year-old daughter of Mia Farrow, his former partner and Dylan’s mother. (Ms. Previn is now Mr. Allen’s wife of 26 years.) Following an inquiry by child-abuse investigators in Connecticut, Mr. Allen was never prosecuted. He denies having assaulted Dylan Farrow. He has suggested Mia Farrow coached their daughter.
His reputation remained largely intact until 2014, when Dylan Farrow, as an adult, reiterated her accusation (which was published on a New York Times Opinion columnist’s blog). Amid the #MeToo moment three years later, and following another essay by Ms. Farrow, many film critics pointed to Mr. Allen as the quintessential instance of the emerging question: how to consider the work and legacy of an important artist who stood accused of unforgivable acts?
It is far from clear that audiences have decisively turned on Mr. Allen. “Coup de Chance” premiered in September at the Venice Film Festival to a seven-minute standing ovation and protests outside. It opened months ago in France, Spain and a dozen other countries.
Mr. Allen’s 50th film may not even prove his last. A new movie, Ms. Aronson said, “is in the process of being negotiated.”