Man And Superman-Woody Allen’s Irrational Man

 

 

 

 

 

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emily Stone, written and  directed by Woody Allen, 2015

Well Woody Allen is up to his old existential man tricks again, (and again and again) with his latest well what will we call it-philosophical drama, mystery drama, semi-romantic, semi-black comedy under review here, Irrational Man. Once again the madman actor/director/writer goes down into the mud to try to figure out what makes modern humankind tick. What is the meaning of life in a world beyond our control that has dogged old Woody since he started making films. They could be as high art as Annie Hall or Manhattan or somewhere in the middle like this one but Woody is always trying to pose some great question of existence when he puts his mind to a script. A lot of this film is rehash of earlier material but all lot is a different not quite serio-comic take on one modern man’s attempts to live in the modern world- and fail.      

So take one Abe Lucas (played by Joaquin Phoenix last seen in this space as a drug-strung out Johnny Cash hounding Reese Witherspoon as June Carter for her hand in marriage), well-travelled, well-worn and well world-wearied college professor, a philosophy professor of course, a rock star in his profession and not some lowly adjunct being paid per course (although off of his teaching technique and style in the film maybe he should have been in that latter category) who as part of his never-ending mid-life existential crisis number 27 is slumming teaching at a small elite college in Rhode Island for the summer(Brown one would guess although the locale given was Newport so go figure except the occasional ocean scenes are spectacular). He carries his existential angst baggage with him of course.

That baggage entails a weariness with life, that middle age life problem everybody faces dressed up as angst, alienation, ennui and, hell, why not throw in hubris (or the film’s background music all instrumental to set the tone). Along the way we get a tour of the various currents in 19^th and 20^th century philosophy especially the Sartre-de Beauvoir-driven existentialism popular in Europe in the post-World War II period. Old Abe is bored, frustrated, blocked and temporally sexually impotent (with emphasis on the temporary). So naturally a good-looking philosophy professor with rock star quality is irresistibly attractive first to a fellow female professor and the big prize of every male college professor’s sexual fantasy dream, that budding co-ed who is ready willing and able to jump into bed with him, Jill, played by fetching Emma Stone.

That part is straight up college romance stuff and not enough these days to get anything but a yawn (or a review before the faculty board for corrupting the morals of the youth, the female youth and therefore a violation against the unwritten law of intergenerational sex). What jumps this one up after the long sexual foreplay before Abe and Jill hit the sheets is that Abe has an epiphany- gets religion at the local diner after overhearing some poor bedraggled woman speaking about how she is getting screwed over by the justice system in her divorce by a corrupt judge friendly to her husband’s case. That overheard conversation gets Abe’s juices flowing (literally as he jumps in the hay with that smitten fellow professor who had been trying to jump his bones during his temporary impotency). He decides to be not merely man but superman, decides to play God and change that woman’s fate-for the better of course. Kill the judge and end the misery.        

 And old Abe does so with poison after stalking the judge. Of course Jill who overheard that same diner conversation was shocked when she heard that the judge had died unexpectedly of what at first was called a heart attack then murder, murder most foul, murder by poison. Then as always the pieces started falling together. As always as well crime doesn’t pay, the criminal must pay the cinematic price for his foul deed, and Jill finally figures that Abe did that misbegotten judge in. She, middle class and conventional at heart, had no truck with some Nietzsche-crazed idea and tells Abe to turn himself in, or else. The “or else” is what Abe opted for trying to kill dear Jill in an elevator mishap. But rough justice will out in the end in this wicked old world sometimes and in the scuffle to throw Jill down the waiting elevator shaft Abe took the fall from Eden. And Jill, well, Jill is wiser for the experience. Enough of irrational supermen for her. Yeah, Woody was up to his old tricks- again.