A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK
(12)
★★ ★★★
NEUROTIC and privileged white people complain about their blessed and exceedingly fortunate lives as storm clouds decant over Manhattan in Woody Allen’s latest valentine to his home city.
Blessed with a starry cast led by the equally luminous Timothee Chalamet and Elle Fanning, A Rainy Day in New York has been gathering dust on a shelf for two years after the
Timothee Chalamet and Elle Fanning
MeToo movement refocused attention on the writer-director’s private life.
Perhaps this beautifully photographed yet emotionally lightweight exercise in navelgazing should have remained sight unseen because the script falls short of his best work.
Yardley College student Gatsby Welles (Chalamet) is untouched by the rough edges of real life thanks to the vast fortune of his New York parents (Cherry Jones, Jonathan Hogan).
He fawns deliriously over girlfriend Ashleigh Enright (Fanning), a beauty queen from Tucson, who also harks from wealthy stock and intends to make her name as a journalist on the college newspaper.
Ashleigh lands an interview
with revered film director Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) in Manhattan and Gatsby uses $20,000 of his poker winnings to fund a romantic weekend including a lavish hotel suite and dinner at a favourite restaurant.
Those plans are derailed when Ashleigh stumbles upon a scoop.
Pollard is deeply unhappy with his latest project and reveals that he’s thinking of quitting. Ashleigh becomes embroiled in the director’s existential crisis, which ensnares actor Francisco Vega (Diego Luna) and screenwriter
Ted Davidoff (Jude Law).
Meanwhile, Gatsby is left to his own devices and he seeks fleeting pleasure in the company of his brother Hunter (Will Rogers) and an ex-girlfriend’s little sister (Selena Gomez).
A Rainy Day in New York is a fleeting diversion, that will be forgotten as quickly as the various continuity errors that allow Chalamet’s jacket to miraculously dry each time he steps out of a downpour.
■ Available to stream/download from June 5.