Manhattan (1979)

Released in 1979 through United Artists, Manhattan arrived at a moment when Woody Allen was widely regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in American cinema. Coming off the critical and commercial success of Annie Hall (1977), Allen leaned further into a personal, semi-autobiographical mode, shooting in black and white and setting the film against a romanticised portrait of New York City. The choice of monochrome was a deliberate aesthetic statement at a time when it was far from the commercial norm, and the film opened to widespread acclaim, earning two Academy Award nominations and cementing Allen's reputation as a filmmaker willing to court both admiration and controversy in equal measure. The controversy, it should be said, has only grown with time: the central relationship between Allen's fortysomething character and a seventeen-year-old girl (played by Mariel Hemingway) was noted as uncomfortable by some even on release, and it reads considerably more awkwardly to contemporary audiences.

Allen directs and stars, playing Isaac Davis, a television writer who abandons his girlfriend Tracy (Hemingway) after developing feelings for Mary (Diane Keaton), the mistress of his married best friend Yale (Michael Murphy). The supporting cast is genuinely strong on paper. Keaton, fresh from her own celebrated work with Allen, brings her familiar nervous energy to the role. Meryl Streep, still relatively early in what would become an extraordinary career, appears as Isaac's ex-wife, having left him for another woman and now writing a memoir about the marriage. Gordon Willis's cinematography, framing the city in sweeping widescreen compositions, earned considerable praise, and the George Gershwin-heavy score became closely associated with the film's image of New York as an idealised, almost mythological place. Whether the finished product earns all of that affection is, of course, a matter of opinion, and it is one that has been reassessed more than once over the decades since. For a sense of what else was coming out of this particularly fertile period for cinema, you might also want to look at my thoughts on Fantastic Planet (1973) and Westworld (1973), two rather different films that reflect the broader creative restlessness of the era.

Polished but unremarkable in its narrative ambitions, Manhattan remains one of those films that tends to divide audiences along lines of temperament as much as taste. Whether you find Allen's brand of neurotic, self-absorbed humour charming or insufferable will shape the entire experience. Here is what I made of it.

Everyone in this film is an unlikeable, unbearable, simpleton. Honestly after seeing the accolades of this film I was expecting something artistic or well acted or well written. It was shit. The opening scenes are a bunch of pretentious unrealistic wet wipes just chatting about art and movies and then Woody Allen starts noncing it up with a 17 year old, pushing the agenda that this is a normal thing. None of the characters are likeable at all, Woody Allen is a horrible actor. Just a whiney, mopey creep. The soundtrack is more Family Guy than anything and the editing (especially scene transitions) is abrupt and awkward. It's supposed to be a romantic comedy but not once did it even make me smile let alone laugh. Terrible movie.

I went in with reasonable expectations given the reputation, and I came out genuinely baffled by the years of reverence. The relationship at the film's centre is not handled with any particular thoughtfulness or self-awareness, and rather than the sharp, warm comedy I had hoped for, the whole thing felt airless and pleased with itself in a way that wore thin almost immediately. If you are curious about other comedy films I have spent time with recently, my reviews of Salaam Cinema (1995) and Cigarette (2005) cover territory that felt considerably more rewarding. Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason. And sometimes they just got lucky with the press.

Rating: ½  | Year: 1979  | Watched: 2025-04-12

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)