Irrational Man (2015)

Basically, I'll watch any film that Woody Allen makes. That said, it doesn't mean I think all of his films are top rank. His best films blend comedy, psychology, and philosophy with a good storyline. His worse fall short in one of these areas. When I first started watching the film, I thought it had all the potential of some of his better films. A charismatic, somewhat famous, professor comes to a small college. His questionable reputation intrigues and titillates students and colleagues alike. The professor (Joaquin Phoenix )is in the throes of mid-life angst and burdened by the expectations others have of him. In an attempt to recharge his life, he heads down some questionable trails.

The psychological aspects of the plot evaporate into a crime drama. For a moment, the professor becomes a Raskolnikov-like character and I began to think the psychological aspect may once again come to the fore and make this an interesting movie. Instead, this potential plot twist is brushed aside and, sadly, the rest is more or less predictable.

The acting is good enough, though the romantic relationships among the characters are shallow and not well-developed, making them somewhat difficult to believe.

Woody Allen fans may find the film interesting enough, but don't expect another Midnight in Paris or a crime story as good as Manhattan Murder Mystery. If Irrational Man was more in keeping with its title, it would have been less predictable and more interesting.

Fmovies: When deciding to go to Irrational Man, I believed to be in for a treat. As a philosophy major struggling with an occasional existential crisis, I thought it might be cool to see a movie about a philosopher in similar peril. Although the movie starts our rather promising, it quickly lapses into utter disaster. About halfway you can stop watching as you know exactly how it will end and you might even be able to anticipate exactly what the actors are going to say. The movie is quite the opposite of a scenario in which you recognize only at the last moment that the situation is going dire. You do not really get sucked into the performance, but you just see random people uttering lines of text. The philosophy used can be taken from one introductory course but no real errors are made, except for running into dozens of cliché's. The dramatic ending resulted in hysterical laughter throughout the theater, not because it was funny, but because it was so poor. In fact, I have gone through the trouble of creating an account, just to be able to point out that this movie is a waste of time.

I hope Woody keeps on doing what he is doing, he is a master at his craft as another pointed out. This was so steeped in wonder and beauty it makes no sense not to only watch this but to study it. This is what happens when a super intellectual who also has the creative touch does research on a topic , uses life, other art anything and disgorges something this affecting and touching that one cannot help but experience the Stendhal Syndrome! I love Woody I wish he was right here right now so If he could get a woody I would pleasure our Lord of Screenplay - wish he actually do much much more in the way of other mediums, just letters, diaries, maybe just jurnals on his thoughts, his ideologies on life on everything and short stories, poetry, novels jokes so much much more all the time!

Irrational Man fmovies. Like so many, I will always go and see a Woody Allen film. If nothing else, there is something so nastalgic about the opening title sequence of white text against black background while dixieland music turns in the background (although during these credits there is a noticeably lack of music). Add Pheonix to the mix and chances are so high that the film will be enjoyable to watch. In short, it wasn't.

Pheonix sipping from a flask while driving fast in an old Volvo, black shades on - cool. But progressively less and less cool and realistic as the film goes on. How often do you expect me to believe that this professor drinks from his flask throughout the day without falling asleep or having someone say 'Hey dude, stop doing that, you're on a college campus'.

I wish I cared for the characters, but between all the abrupt cuts from one scene to completely different scene without ever feeling grounded, and the abundance of very lukewarm dialogue - 'philosophy is just verbal masturbation' (wow how witty for a philosophy professor to say) - i just never felt like I knew who the characters were, or wanted to know them.

I was put off by the obviousness of the premise - student falls for the tortured philosophy professor. Philosophy professor is too damaged to care about anything, until he finally finds inspiration...but in the wrong place - and expected that Allen wouldn't have bothered going down that road unless he had something truly unique to add. But there was nothing, it honestly seemed like a stripped down first draft of the film with dialogue feeling so uncomfortable at times as if they didn't get a very good take but just said, 'screw, move on', i.e. people talking over one another, but in an unnatural way like they forgot the other person still had some of their line to say.

The visuals were pleasant. I enjoyed seeing Pheonix with a pot-belly and a long t-shirt, looking like an app developer. There were nice shots of a college campus, cliffs by the sea, quaint east coast house interiors, and so on. Not enough to hold my interest, and not enough for me to forgive the cringy dialogue or accept the unbelievable second half of the movie.

Anyways, I probably won't dissuade an Allen fan from seeing one of his movies, and I wouldn't want to. Go and watch it, and check it off the list.

I saw this movie today and it was just a breath of fresh air. In this era of political correctness and the consequent surge of tragicomedies that seem to be made to drive home the point that everything in life must be serious, Woody, in his infinite wisdom, has prescribed us a style of comedy often hated, misunderstood, and forgotten: the murder comedy a la Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux. I haven't laughed this hard at someone trying to kill another person since Preston Sturges's 1948 film Unfaithfully Yours, even though it's ultimately a much more understated English style of humor (very Comedy of Manners-ish.) As such, it doesn't surprise me that Irrational Man has been hated by most critics, since they are likely to fall into the trap of expecting that this movie will be one of the aforementioned tragicomedies, and thus simply think it fails to deliver. Instead, here Woody seems to find comedy in everything from Kant to sexism to suicide to faculty gossip, and as a consequence, the movie ends up as loose as his "early funny movies," unfortunately adding just another layer that might further confuse audiences. Essentially, if you don't find the satire quick you just won't understand what you're watching. On the actor side of things, Stone and Joaquin really kill it. It almost feels like they can turn the intensity up as easily as turning a knob, and there are three moments when you really get a sense of how far they can go.

This will certainly be on a list of Woody's most underrated movies in ten years time if the bad reception it gets doesn't slow down, and I hope that people will take the time to realize just what this movie is because I think they'd really have a good time watching it.

Woody has such a full body of work that's stretched for decades, there is hardly anyone to compare him to. That being so, it's even interesting to think about people's reactions when a new one of his movies is released. After watching a new one, the most vocal people tend to try to rank it either at the very top or very bottom of his movies. I think that does the movie-watching experience a disservice.

There's very much to like about this movie and just as many ways to watch it. For one, it's like a classy fun witty and romantic Hitchcock movie, albeit transposed coolly and beautifully to the present-day. For two, Khondji's cinematography is an absolute afternoon delight. For three, the three leads are brilliantly cast and played. For four, it's a fun movie about an ethical experiment. For five, it's a fable-like tale of good and evil, safe and daring. For six, it's a very intense story of girls and women, and the very harrowing gulf between. For seven, it fits majestically within possibly Woody's most noble ambition: to have the same movie be as good a comedy as it is a tragedy as it is a story of triumph, in other words, it's an ambitious script. It's an ambitious script also because of the shifting of narrator throughout, and the way each shift pulls at our sympathies. I was laughing at the same time that I was biting my nails and trying to remember to breathe.

We're truly blessed to be able to watch these when they're new! Future generations will envy us, the way we might envy people who were there to see the new Hitchcock or even the new Chaplin.