ThiefHott Too much of everything

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

avik-basu1889 Visually, 'Manhattan' is nothing short of a loving, deeply passionate tribute by Woody Allen to his beloved New York and more specifically Manhattan. Manhattan is made to look absolutely beautiful with the help of Gordon Willis' widescreen photography. Allen uses the Black & White visual texture to romanticise New York and make it look like the New York of the movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. However there lies the deliberate contradiction in the film. Unlike the 'happily ever-after' relationships of Classic Hollywood, in 'Manhattan', in accordance with the running theme in almost every other Woody Allen film, true and long lasting love is almost impossible to find. Similar to his other films, the characters here belong to the intellectual upper/upper-middle class and they are shown to be completely immersed in narcissism. They are lonely, but they choose to hide behind their armour of intellectualism. They want company, but they lose patience and get afflicted with doubt and boredom as soon as the hint of a potentially lasting relationship raises its head. Allen adds to the meta-element in the film by making fun of his own self constantly as the real life Woody Allen too is a part of the intellectual class that he is making fun of in 'Manhattan' and some of the comedic taunts directed at the character of Isaac seem like direct jabs at his own self. The film's ending is pitch perfect as it underlines(without seeming didactic) the need for hopefulness instead of pseudo-intellectual cynicism, a need for a little more faith in romance and a little more faith in humanity, so that the romanticised visuals of New York get to complement instead of contradict the sensibilities of its residents.

grantss Isaac (Woody Allen) is a twice-divorced 42-year old TV screenwriter, dating a 17-year old girl, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). His best friend is Yale (Michael Murphy) who is married to Emily (Anne Byrne Hoffman) and is having an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton). Isaac finds himself drawn to Mary and when Yale and Mary split up, they start seeing each other. Things seem to be going swimmingly, but...Okay but not overly engaging, interesting or profound. Really just a romantic-drama, and nothing more. The clever humour which usually typifies Woody Allen movies is very few and far between and what there is generally doesn't quite have the some intelligence and zing as his usual stuff.So that just leaves it as a drama, and, as mentioned, it's just a romantic drama, so nothing too profound can come from it. There are some decent intrigues to sustain the movie, but that is about it.The 42-year-old-with-17-year-old was also a bit creepy. This aspect of the movie seemed to be explained well and the issue gotten past, but then the conclusion wrecks that. Very unsatisfactory ending, and undoes a lot of the progress that came before it.On the plus side, there were some good jabs at the pretentiousness of New York society. The cinematography is great too: filmed in black and white with some wonderful, loving, lingering shots of New York skylines and landmarks. Can't fault the performances either. Woody Allen does what he does best - playing himself. Diane Keaton is the pick of the bunch as the intelligent, over-analysing, knowingly-beautiful, self-obsessed Mary. Meryl Streep, in only her third feature film (her second was The Deer Hunter), is great in a supporting role.

sharky_55 Midnight In Paris takes its opening from Manhattan, and both are loving odes to great cities, but here additionally we have the smooth jazz saxophone of Gershin, and the voice-over of a certain neurotic trying to find the perfect opening lines to his book. There are some truths and some lies. The biggest truth is Isaac's love for the city, something that even passing time cannot erode - he intends to immortalise it in Willis' stunning black and white photography that captures a distant past, a nostalgic version of the skyscrapers, the ferries, the butcheries, the snowy parks, and of course the iconic shot of the Queensboro Bridge twinkling and silhouetting what seems to be a lovestruck pair. And then he is exaggerating in some instances; he maintains that he and will still have the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat even in his 70s, and remarks if there is anyone that he models himself after it is god. However when it comes time to break up with the 17 year-old Tracy, he subtly deflects the doe-eyed interrogation of love into an act for her own good - now he is 42, miserable, and his hair is falling out. He is self-righteous, but not on the same level of pretentiousness as Yale or Mary, who pride themselves in their 'Academy of Overrated' and disparage great artists from all areas. Watch how they and Isaac spar - well not spar, they laugh and snicker, while Isaac adamantly refuses their every suggestion. But one line from his ex-wife's memoir of their disastrous marriage seems to suggest he is not so different (and the group laugh out loud at this reading, but as ElMaruecan82 points out, Tracy would never have done so, and I agree); as much as he seems to despise these pseudo-intellectual New Yorkers, he chases eagerly after one and only succeeds in doing so on account of being one himself. He is disillusioned with his successful comedy show, so he quits without really thinking just how much of a downgrade he will have to suffer in his lifestyle - what is more important, his integrity, or the colour of his tap water? He complains at length about it, and in the next scene the cameras tracks him as he walks over to hand a crystal clear glass of water to Mary, but we already knew that it was her. He adjusts his personality depending on who he is trying to woo. He is also hypocritical. Watch how two grown men argue and bicker over a grown women like she is a toy. Yale spits out that he saw her first. Isaac is clearly bitter about being cheated on despite doing the same to Tracy. Yale childishly retaliates later and lies to his wife, solely pushing the blame on his dear friend. Earlier, they unexpectedly bump into Mary's ex-husband, and Isaac is pushed swiftly out of the frame, but it matters not, because Wallace Shawn as Jeremiah is his spitting image, middle-aged, balding, short (it's even suggested he used to be overweight). Isaac marvels that a man that looks like that could ever be a dominating, devastating sexual partner - but of course, he's assigned these roles to himself.Mariel Hemingway is Tracy, the 17 year old girlfriend, and hers is perhaps the best performance of them of all, quiet, assured, straight faced. It is a testament to her ability that I find myself with troubling thoughts, never once wondering about her attraction to the older Isaac, but questioning over and over how he managed to get her. This is the mindset of Isaac, who manages to convince himself and her that she is youthful beyond her pretty face, that she is inexperienced and precocious, that she has many lovers ahead, and that she does not yet know what love is. In short, that she is uncorrupted. Watch his little sly smile as Tracy answers "I go to high school", clearly out of her element, and he loves this about her. He is babying her, but indulging in it at the same time. Willis frames the two close yet far apart in the stylish apartment, distant, as he once again lectures her on how to approach this relationship that seems a dying cause. She makes a joke about how little he thinks of her knowledge of the arts, and we cut away before he can respond, but we know it is a dismissive one. They take a horse drawn carriage through the glittering nightime skyline, and Isaac dubs the experience corny, saying he's done it all before as a kid, but deep down he treasures this little memory, and thinks himself lucky to be able to do it again with such a beautiful girl. He finally comes to his senses in the final scene. Once again we start with a voice-over, which quickly turns into something more immediate and genuine - he is not attempting to wittily open his biography, but quietly recording himself musing over life's wonders. Music (most of all Gershin, who serenades throughout), cinema, good food, and then he fixates on Tracy's face. He runs her down, perhaps one of the first instances of this romantic comedy type confession. But here, although it is sincere (the most he has been the entire movie), it is also selfish, and he is sabotaging all his previous arguments and insistence on her naivety and youthfulness and boundless opportunities, but if he can have her again, it does not matter. He pleads for her to not get corrupted, while she insists it is just a few months. Who is the kid here?

Francesca Randone I'm nineteen years old and I've watched this film through the eyes of a girl of the 2015. I can honestly say that I've been very impressed by the detached and ingenious sarcasm with which Allen depicts a generation, his generation. In Manhattan I've seen first of all the portrait of a generation, the generation of those who lived their forties in Manhattan, the symbol of everything that could be achieved in the 80s. And the portrait depicted is not softened at all, since every single adult in this movie is a neurotic mess. There are adults afraid of cancer, adults that plan to write books they will never end, adults that put their life in the hands of LSD-addicted analysts, adults that talk about orgasms, adults devastated by dull, mediocre men imagined as "gods", adults that waver between homo, bi and heterosexuality, adults that pretend to be intellectuals and try to judge Mozart, Bergman and Scott Fitzgerald, adults whose relationships are stable just as the weather is, adults that act like they believe in the highest values but that in the end need a seventeen-year-old girl to find their balance. And those are the same adults that despise the generation brought up by the TV and the pill. This show of absurdities is well hosted by Isaac Davis, Woody Allen himself, that unprejudiced as always, hides all these paradoxical situations behind a good amount of irony. If I had to make a comparison with a more recent movie, I would say that what Allen did with his generation has been done by Tony Servillo with the current fifty-year-old Roman VIPs, in his latest work La Grande Bellezza. Irony, good acting and a good soundtrack always make a movie worth watching. And this movie can boast the best of everything.