Woody, is there 'Anything Else'?

Well, at least the Billie Holiday songs are nice.

If you took Woody Allen's wonderful "Annie Hall," cast it with dull twentysomethings and added an older guy with black-rimmed glasses who wisecracks, quotes Camus and at one point demolishes a car — well, you'd have "Anything Else." But the real question is, why would a great filmmaker want to do this? And why would anyone, short of rabid Christina Ricci fans, want to watch it?

Allen's latest is an oddly lifeless pastiche, full of bits that you might recognize (the analyst, the cocaine, the paranoia, the mismatched romance, the pretty shots of Central Park) and adding up to precious little. Jason Biggs and Ricci play Alvy and Annie — nope, sorry, Jerry and Amanda, a would-be writer and a neurotic dilettante who meet, fall in love and break up. Along the way, flashbacks are employed, Jerry addresses the camera to give us his take on things, and many scenes take place on New York sidewalks.

All of this worked just fine in "Annie Hall," a classic romantic comedy that holds up beautifully 26 years after its release. Here, it just feels like desperation, or perhaps boredom. Biggs and Ricci, unfortunately, are part of the problem; the two have no visible chemistry. Biggs, best known for his boy-meets-pastry scene in "American Pie," is a dolefully handsome fellow but an awkward actor who seems a bit cowed by the material; the doll-eyed Ricci mostly whines and acts petulant.

Movie review ** "Anything Else," with Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Woody Allen, Danny DeVito, Stockard Channing. Written and directed by Woody Allen. 108 minutes. Rated R for a scene of drug use and some sexual references. Several theaters.

He's boring, she's annoying — clearly these characters don't belong together, nor with anyone else. Half an hour into the movie, the title seems like a taunt. Is there anything else, Woody? Please?

The screenplay feels like a first draft, full of characters who keep getting dropped and picked up again (Stockard Channing, in particular, is wasted as Amanda's lush of a mother) and, except for one splendid bit about the Cleveland baseball team and Toys R Us (you had to be there), sadly devoid of Allen's trademark one-liners. It's interesting to see Allen putting himself in the role of the older mentor rather than the romantic lead (a scene in an Army surplus store, as he gives advice to Jerry, feels exactly like his bookstore scene with Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall"). But he's playing an idealized and almost sentimental character who's sort of a Greek chorus to Jerry — an idea that was much funnier when Allen used a real Greek chorus in "Mighty Aphrodite."

Now nearing 70, Allen still makes a movie a year; perhaps it's time to slow down, while his great movies are still within memory.

I can't imagine what a moviegoer unfamiliar with Allen's work might make of "Anything Else"; while a disappointing Allen movie is still better than most movies out there, it's a shadow of what he could once do. In "Annie Hall," we knew Annie and Alvy weren't meant for each other, but we rooted for them anyway.

There's no one to root for in "Anything Else," except perhaps Billie Holiday, whose croony, laid-back rendition of "Easy to Love" deserves a place in a better movie. Perhaps Allen will make it, some day.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com