Woody Allen’s latest movie is a hit and a sleazy, pretentious failure

Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning and Woody Allen on the set of A Rainy Day in New York. Picture: Getty

Peter Bradshaw, Guardian Australia, June 4:

So it goes on, the eerie productivity of Woody Allen, who outlived his greatness and might yet outlive his notoriety … There are more than enough people out there behaving as if they never liked Annie Hall and affecting not to remember how Allen invented the grammar of rom-com and much else.

A surprise box office hit, says Linda Marric, Jewish Chronicle, June 4:

His name may have become synonymous with scandal, unproven sexual assault allegations and constant public mud-slinging between him and his son (Ronan Farrow), yet at 84 Woody Allen seems as upbeat about his work as he’s ever been. His latest film, A Rainy Day in New York, became a surprise global box office hit when it was released … amid the continued coronavirus crisis which saw cinemas around the world being closed down. 

Sleazy, says Alexandra Pollard, The Independent, June 4:

Woody Allen has always made it impossible to separate the art from the artist. His male protagonists are either played by him or by actors impersonating him, fastidiously directed to adopt his stuttering delivery, his jerky body language, his neuroticism, his obsessive contempt for women. But even divorced from its director and the accusations that have soured its release — hardly an easy uncoupling — A Rainy Day in New York is a sleazy, pretentious failure.

Amy Haneline, USA Today, May 26:

Woody Allen has been the centre of much controversy since the 90s — facing abuse allegations from his adoptive stepdaughter Dylan Farrow and marrying the young Korean-born adopted daughter of his longtime partner Mia Farrow — but he isn’t letting it bother him. In an interview with the Daily Mail, the award-winning director opened up about the scandal, his relationship with his wife Soon-Yi Previn and how he is adjusting to the pandemic. The sexual abuse allegations, for which Allen was never charged after two separate investigations, resurfaced amid the #MeToo era and again after the release of his memoir Apropos of Nothing. The book was dropped by Hachette, the publisher Allen’s son Ronan Farrow was working with on his book, Catch and Kill, about his reporting on powerful men and sexual assault.

Disowned by its cast. Andrew Pulver, The Guardian, May 14:

The Woody Allen film A Rainy Day in New York, disowned by high-profile members of its cast and whose US release was cancelled by its original backer, Amazon Studios, has become the highest earning film at the global box office this week.

The Irish Times, June 5:

A Rainy Day in New York: Unfunny, anachronistic, unmarketable. Woody Allen’s latest is dated and slipshod.

Kevin Maher, The Times, June 5:

Woody Allen’s latest film starts with a whimper and ends with a damp squib … It never feels even mildly authentic, credible or, worst of all, funny.

Self-awareness? Ryan Gilbey, New Statesman, May 20:

Woody Allen is a low-life. A misanthropic imbecile, a second-rater, a runt and a louse. An immature, maladjusted wreck, a fatuous dunce, an ignoramus, a schnook and a klutz. In a directing career spanning half a century, he happens also never to have made a great film. The source of this invective is Allen himself, and it is in generous supply across the 400 pages of Apropos of Nothing. With self-esteem like that, who needs the critics, the public and what he calls the “#MeToo zealots”? Or, for that matter, a lily-livered publishing house? Employees of Hachette staged a walkout in protest over the acquisition of Apropos of Nothing … it was an attempt to censor an author who has been exonerated.