MELINDA AND MELINDA

RATING:

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Will Ferrell, Jonny Lee Miller, Radha Mitchell, Amanda Peet, Chloë Sevigny, Wallace Shawn. Written and Directed by Woody Allen.

Rated PG-13 for adult situations involving sexuality, and some substance material

It’s an old trick in creative writing classes. The instructor tells the student to think of a story, write it, and then, without changing the basic circumstances, write the same story from a different angle. Such is the structure of Woody Allen’s high-concept ensemble, “Melinda and Melinda.” Over a very Woody-Allen-looking, yuppie New York dinner, some old friends debate whether life is comic or tragic. Each tries to prove his point by telling the story of a fictional character, Melinda.

In the dramatic storyline, a hard-drinking, hard-living Melinda crashes her friends’ dinner party, returning to New York after a long, unexplained absence. Sipping scotch and snacking on sleeping pills, she asks if she can stay for a while. Her friends (Chloe Sevigny, Johnny Dee Lee) grumble but acquiesce, and soon we’re caught up in their lives of marital melodrama, cheating, and despair.

In the parallel comedic universe, Melinda also interrupts a dinner party, this one hosted by Hobie (a toned-down Will Ferrell) and his nagging, high-strung wife (Amanda Peet). Here when someone vomits (which happens right away) it’s the cause of awkward laughter, not a trip to the hospital.

Melinda (played by Radha Mitchell in both worlds) links the two stories, but several similarities, some obvious, some subtle, also serve as a thematic bridge. Each story has an unhappy married couple, and in each marriage, the husband is an aspiring (and failing) actor. In each case, Melinda’s return sparks change. For the dramatic this means heartache and regret; the comic means light-hearted irony and physical humor.

Often these structural conceits are nothing more than gimmicks, elaborate attempts to cover up for a lack of story. So it’s a delightful surprise that each story, in its own right, brims with engaging characters, quirky details and compelling tension. In the tragic world, a lonely, borderline-suicidal Melinda is convinced that she’ll never find anyone. The low-point is a blind date orchestrated by her friends, where she meets a geeky dentist who has one of those PDA-phones clipped onto his belt.

In the next scene, though, she meets an elegant charmer (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who finally gives her cause for hope. A classically trained pianist with soul-searching eyes and a passion for the arts, he’s every woman’s dream, and by this time we feel so bad for Melinda that we really want him to work. When the cracks appear in his armor, we’re almost as crushed as Melinda.

Melinda also meets a pianist in the comedic-universe, but this time it’s next to a random piano on a sunny street corner, a nice visual contrast with the dimly-lit gravitas of drama. Their casual fling makes Hobie jealous, even though he’s faithfully (although unhappily) married. Sure, it’s comedy, but it’s an impressive bit of range for Will Ferrell. Only rarely using slapstick as a crutch—such as getting his bathrobe stuck in the door while spying on Melinda—he relaxes, plays it straight, lets the timing do its work. With his puppy-dog face and vulnerable persona, it’s easily his most cuddly (and human) performance.

If you didn’t know any better, you might not even recognize Radha Mitchell as the Melinda in each storyline. Her funny-Melinda is confident, perky, a fun-loving gal who has a good time while betting on horse-racing. The tragic-Melinda has seen it all, slumped in self-defeat and ready to collapse from the next heartache. And the two Melindas feed off one another, our compassion for the tragic makes the comic relief so welcome.

Unfortunately, though, Wood Allen can’t resist the temptation to show us how clever he is. Periodically, he yanks us out of these stories and shows us that original yuppie dinner conversation, where the friends bicker over comedy vs. tragedy. They comment on what’s happened so far (“This is the makings of a delightful human comedy!”), sip wine, and hammer home the points that were already made so subtly. It’s a more flagrant buzz-kill than a bad voiceover.

These jarring interruptions, which remind us that we’re watching a movie, that these characters are fake, add up to a real impediment to our pathos. It’s like watching a DVD with a director’s commentary turned on. That’s fine if you’ve seen the movie, but it takes away from the first-time experience.

So thanks to these frustrating wink-winks, and a flagging conclusion, Melinda lacks a solid emotional punch. But the premise is interesting enough—our creative writing teacher would be proud—and each story has enough spice to make the journey worth taking.

Agree? Disagree? E-mail me at jeff@latinoreview.com.