‘Irrational’ & unwatchable
‘Irrational Man” plays, like so much of Woody Allen’s work over the past 20 years, like a bad Woody Allen parody. The men spout Deep Thoughts and high ideals. The women fawn, wondering if they can make these thinkers feel something. The audience groans.
Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix, sticking out his belly defiantly) is a dour philosophy professor. His reputation as a drunk and a womanizer precedes his arrival at a leafy Northeastern college. The female faculty members are all aflutter, especially Rita (Parker Posey). But Abe can’t perform in bed due to existential angst.
One of Abe’s students, Jill (Emma Stone), tries to get him out of his funk. Their friendship is at first platonic, despite campus gossip (and Jill saying that she prefers Abe to her dull boyfriend). Then Abe decides to right a wrong by committing a murder. Suddenly his life, and his sex life, becomes more vibrant.
The use of murder is a dull echo of Allen’s masterpiece “Crimes & Misdemeanors” (1989) and his lesser but still memorable “Match Point” (2005). The writer-director’s appropriation of Hitchcockian twists here is a lazy addendum. It’s predictable, too, given that in recent years his dramas have been better than his comedies.
As Abe strolls the campus to the never-ending strains of Ramsey Lewis’ jazz standard “The ‘In’ Crowd,” Allen forcefeeds us a jauntiness that feels disconnected. It’s been a long time since his last true comedic success (“Bullets Over Broadway” in 1994). In the interim we’ve had “Celebrity,” “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion,” “Hollywood Ending,” “Anything Else,” “Whatever Works,” “To Rome With Love” ... stop me if you hear one you like. Only “Midnight in Paris” worked.
While “Irrational Man” goes for softer satire, its stylings and older-man/younger-woman pairing feel like icky tics Allen can’t shake. Meanwhile, there’s not a smile to be had.
Stone, more winning in Allen’s “Magic in the Moonlight,” falls into the rote dialogue reading Allen seems to demand from his casts. Phoenix fares better, since he never does anything predictably. His mumbling, fumbling, sad-sack shuffle is the film’s sole redeeming quality.
It is still the case that certain performances in an Allen film stand out — like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine.” But that’s in spite of Allen, not thanks to him.
“Irrational Man” can’t cohere around Phoenix. The movie is an irrational mess.
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