Titillating

harry_tk_yung

Let me start with something very important – M&M is not Sliding Door, which shows the audience two "alternative realities" of the story of a women, where leaving a place just five minutes later results in an entirely different life line. No, Melinda and Melinda are two entirely different women who just happen to have the same name.

But if Sliding door is a little surreal, so is M&M, in a different way. Here, we don't have two stories, just two sketches of what goes on in two playwright's mind, sort of first drafts of plays, if you will. Four New Yorkers are having a titillating discussion in a restaurant about the relatively merits of tragedies and comedies. When someone comes up with a simple situation of a women called Melinda's surprise arrival at a couple's dinner party at their home, the two playwrights among them let loose their creative energies, and two stories unfold before our eyes. Both couples, incidentally, are having marital problems that is not yet apparent. After falling for a few red herrings placed there to lead us into thinking that we have some sort of symmetry, the audience finally realises that this is not the way things go. And just as we see the two stories follow their separate paths, some smallest hints of symmetry start to creep back in. Woody Allen certainly has a lot of fun playing with his audience.

I wouldn't go into all the details which are easy to follow anyway. Briefly, Melinda T's arrival is a surprise only in the sense that it's two months later than anticipated. The couple, the wife of which is Melinda T's old colleague buddy, has been preparing to take this woman in to allow her some time to recover from her shattered life. Melinda C, however, is just a neighbour of the couple and happens to be knocking on their door for help after she has taken 28 sleeping pills that evening. Here comes the red herring of a symmetry I referred to, as both couples try to set the respective Melinda up with a dentist. But both dentists soon disappear into the thin air. Melinda C ends up with the husband of the couple, while Melinda T and her college buddy end up in a triangle with another man.

The joy of watching this movie is in the joy of following the imagination of the two playwrights behind the scene (which, don't forget, in really the personification of the REAL playwright Woody Allen), in the exploration of relationships between sophisticated, artistic personage in the big city. The dialogues are as witty as expected. The situations are familiar but the story does twist and turn. When you have just about forgotten that the idea of symmetry had once occurred to you, Mr. Allen teases you with another pseudo symmetry, like having two separate romances both starting with a four-handed piano scenario. The one that immediately blossom later fades, while the one that starts only as a subtle hint finally bears fruit. I wouldn't tell you which is which.

What initially drew me to this movie is Radha Mitchell, who in the end does prove to be the most important reason to see this movie. Through relatively minor roles in movies like Phone Booth and Man on Fire, this very talented actress grew towards Finding Neverland in which her impressive performance (as Matthew Barrie's wife) has sometimes been talked about even more than Kate Winslet's. But it's in M&M that she finally has her own show, and she excels.

And there are two very strong supporting roles, the two wives in the respective couples. On the comedy side is Amanda Peet, quite unforgettable as Jack Nicholson's character's girlfriend in Something's Gotta Give, plays Susan the ambitious independent film director. On the tragedy side Chloe Sevigny, who portrayed the incising, sharp, yet passionate staff editor in Shattered Glass plays here Laurel, a woman from a rich family married to a run-of-the-mill actor and eventually finds herself falling in love with a talented man and entangled in a triangle with her college buddy Melinda T.

Melinda and Melinda will delight Woody Allen fans and Radha Mitchell should be an actress to watch for.

score /10

harry_tk_yung 2 April 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1052426/