Melinda and Melinda

Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (drama, romcom)
6.5/10

I believe this movie can best be summed up by the phrase, "Huh. Well, that was neat." Truth be told, I've never found Woody Allen films to be among my favourites. Hell, most times I don't even find them tolerable. This movie is interesting, though.

The plot? Some friends are out to dinner, among them two polar-opposite writers. A friend tells a story about a girl, Melinda, and asks whether or not it is a comedy - Wallace Shawn's character's speciality - or a tragedy, preferred by Some Guy's character. Yeah, Some Guy. Didn't ring any bells. And he's no Wallace Shawn. Anyway, both men tell the story, but as a comedy and as a tragedy. We, the audience, get to watch their interpretations simultaneously.

As if that weren't potential for confusion enough, both stories feature Melinda (Radha Mitchell) as the main character. Yep, the same woman playing two roles, similar but completely different. Despite all that, I didn't get confused. Everything was easily placed into its respective storyline.

In the tragedy, Melinda drops in on old friends, both of whom are now married. She falls in love, only to have one of her friends have an affair with her new gentleman friend. Then she attempts to jump out a window, and that's that. Her gentleman friend is played by the ever charismatic Chiwetel Ejiofor (Love, Actually), and I must say I didn't recognize anyone else. Ah well. Ejiofor has a sweet name.

On the comedy end, Melinda drops in on some people she doesn't know after eating her weight in sleeping pills. They all become friends, because that's what you do when someone vomits on your carpet and might die any minute. They're both married couples, the main couple consisting of Some Lady and Hobie (Will Ferrell). Yeah, Hobie. He falls in love with Melinda and feels horrible about it. He goes to tell his wife that he loves someone else, and what do you know, the wife is in bed with Other Married Guy From Before! How perfectly convenient! Hobie is excited and calls Melinda, but she's just met some new beau, and he doesn't have the heart/balls to drop his bombshell. They hook up in the end. 'S'all good.

Both plots are interesting, and the actors do a good job, yet I can't help but feel something was missing. It wasn't that funny, and it wasn't that tragic, I suppose. I wanted to laugh outrageously and then have a good cry, but neither story was quite so theatrical. As it turns out, "realistic" isn't something I usually look for in movies. Who knew? I mean, my favourite movies usually involve zombies...

My verdict on this one is mixed, but I would recommend it to certain people. If you like Woody Allen, I'm sure you'll love this movie to pieces. If you liked the dichotomy of Love, Actually then you might also be interested. If multiple unrelated plots give you the heebie-jeebies, stay far far away.