![]() "He was so damn interesting" is maybe the second thing Stone’s V.O. Which we know because we’re told about it frequently in voice-over. ![]() Despite Abe Lucas having displayed a fatalistic immunity to almost everything else, this woman’s story makes a deep impression, and in deciding to do something dramatic about it, he rediscovers his joie de vivre and starts to feel like "an authentic human being." And Abe Lucas’ plight is in this regard worth giving a shit about because Abe Lucas is such a tortured yet original and brilliant intellectual. The revelation Abe Lucas has that transforms his life is prompted by an overheard conversation at a diner at which a woman sobs to her friends about a corrupt family court judge who may award custody of her kids to their no-good dad. This is despite Abe Lucas having already been boning horny, unhappily married science professor Rita, played by Parker Posey, who although being the film’s MVP by a very long mile cannot save her character from the shocking short shrift Allen’s script deals her. But Abe Lucas manfully resists Jill’s frequent come-ons, (and there’s the sneaking sense we are supposed to be amazed by his chivalric self-sacrifice in this regard) until, suddenly energized by a newfound zest for life after he discovers, essentially, his inner sociopath, they start boning anyway. Which we know because she tells us about it frequently in voice-over. Somehow, this troubled aura makes him all the more attractive to perky student Jill ( Emma Stone) who, despite having a very handsome, devoted boyfriend whose sole job is to remind her of how devoted he is, finds she wants more from her blossoming friendship with Abe Lucas. ![]() Played by Joaquin Phoenix, Abe Lucas’ nihilist outlook has brought him to the brink of semi-suicidal, alcoholic despair, which we know because he tells us about it frequently in voice-over. And what new there is in "Irrational Man" is nothing to brag about - there’s an atypical but disheartening slapdash quality to the filmmaking: dodgy edits, awkward staging, atrociously redundant, charmless voice-over.Ībe Lucas, whose name is for some reason almost always stated in full, arrives to take a teaching post at posh, pretty Braylin College, somewhat preceded by his reputation as a hard living, heartbreaking bad-boy philosopher, because those exist. Because depressingly, this is a Woody Allen film and no mistake: the tepid murder plot, the college professor/student relationship, the constant references to Kant and Heidegger and Dostoyevsky, the central character struggling to find meaning while women inexplicably fling themselves at him - these are all as familiar to us as the Windsor EF Elongated typeface he invariably sets his credits in. Perhaps there is something interesting in the idea of replaying the thriller-ish, moral-quandary qualities of " Match Point" for light comedy (signalled more by the wearisome repetitive use of jazzy cuts from the Ramsey Lewis Trio rather than by any, you know, jokes) but while that appears to be the formal aim, the result neither thrills nor amuses and so generically ends up in the tragically overpopulated category marked "Woody Allen dramedy misfire" instead. The tough job of hanging onto a modicum of respect for late-career Woody Allen is about to get even tougher: the director’s latest film " Irrational Man," even by his patchy recent standards, is an embarrassment.
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