Celebrity

Like many later Woody Allen movies, "Celebrity" has a good premise and poor execution.

First, the good: the film's theme is our celebrity-obsessed culture, a topic that hasn't been explored with seriousness in many films. Allen asks how people who essentially do nothing, such as someone taken hostage, can become famous. He lampoons Jerry Springer-like talk shows where skinheads and blacks fight to entertain audiences. He posits a world in which everyone is a celebrity. All of these points seem even more relevant 13 years after the film was made.

Now, the bad: just about everything else. The plot is based on the romantic exploits of a divorced couple. Frequently, this sort of storyline provides the anchor for Allen's films. But here it's utterly arbitrary and tossed off. The man, played by Kenneth Branagh, gets a blowjob from an actress, nearly beds a gorgeous model, dumps a loving girlfriend, and gets dumped by a footloose actress. Sure, whatever. Meanwhile, the woman, played by Judy Davis, is initially far more traumatized by the divorce. Yet she ends up married to a wonderful man. The lesson? In love, it all comes down to luck. Allen has made this point more interestingly in probably ten other films.

Branagh has the "Woody Allen surrogate" role here: he plays the nervous, insecure character that Allen would have played in younger days. The strange thing about Woody Allen surrogates is that they all play their roles exactly as he would have, gesticulating and stammering. Allen apparently gives very little instruction to his actors, so they may simply be taking their cues from his old films. Or they may have seen how successful the first Woody Allen surrogate, John Cusack, was in emulating him for "Bullets Over Broadway." Trouble is, Branagh is no John Cusack. Cusack managed to appear sufficiently nebbish for "Bullets," but Branagh is too ruggedly handsome to convincingly appear insecure and indecisive.

Many critics commented that Allen's films became more caustic and serious in the wake of his messy divorce. The reality is sadder: Allen was still trying to go for silly laughs, but he was starting to lose his comic touch. One scene in "Celebrity" is especially telling: Davis goes to a prostitute to get a lesson on blowjobs. The hooker then nearly chokes on a banana. This is the type of throwaway scene Allen has always used for comedy, but it's so unfunny that viewers were probably just puzzled.

Like almost all Woody Allen films of the last 30 years, this one looks great. And like most of his films, it's filled with talented actors. But while Allen has the artistic freedom to get the crew and cast he wants, he's been increasingly unable to utilize them in recent years.