Writer and Director Woody Allen is back, bringing to the big screen a story filled with the “philosophy of the human spirit” with his latest film IRRATIONAL MAN.
Floating through life as a Philosophy professor unable to face his own existence, Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) can barely make it though the day.
With his reputation as a fun-loving womanizer proceeds him to his new destination ~ a small Liberal Arts College in Rhode Island ~ Abe becomes the newest “exhibition on campus”, intriguing the married, yet apparently totally available fellow professor Rita Richards (Parker Posey), along with also mesmerizing the attentive and astute ethics student, Jill Pollard (Emma Stone).
As these new women in his life soon come to find out, Abe isn’t dealing with the issues in his own life very well, bringing them both to the realization that they must assist Abe in curing all his “ills”.
When Jill prevails in convincing Abe that she is what is best for him, they happen upon a conversation that instantly brings Abe to a new epiphany about his life, and what he is meant to do to get his life “BACK ON TRACK”, and to fulfill his destiny…
I give IRRATIONAL MAN 3 out of 5 stars: Joaquin Phoenix once again portrays the quiet and introverted, turned zealous and extroverted Prof. Abe Lucas perfectly (when is this man going to get the OSCAR he deserves???). Emma Stone and Parker Posey are also perfectly cast as the opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum LOVE INTERESTS of Prof Abe, showing that regardless if your married or in a relationship ~ when the right CRAZY MAN comes along ~you must jump at the chance to prove you can make him whole again! From all this positive hype so far, you are probably wondering why the AVERAGE REVIEW??? Partly because the thought of MURDER as an aphrodisiac did play out a little unsettling for me, plus I am so over the storyline that Allen keeps writing into his latest projects – older man falls for much younger woman – I am beginning to get the feeling that he thinks if he writes it enough into his work, that the public will begin to accept this as NORMAL, and they will forget about how this dynamic played out in his own life, accepting the fact that he married his daughter…which is NEVER going to happen here! But this also doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed Allen’s work over the years either, BLUE JASMINE is still one of my FAVORITE FILMS OF ALL TIME, I just think that too many of the same old ALLENISMS keep resurfacing – including his “TWIST OF FATE” theme which has been so overdone – so, I’m not giving him another 5 out of 5…till I see something totally NEW!!!
Kathy Kaiser
MATINEE CHAT with Kathy Kaiser 