After a career full of men with the craggy skin of a Galápagos tortoise tucking into a diet of peachy-fresh young women, Woody Allen finally permits an older woman to have a relationship with a younger man. But don’t get your hopes up. Allen ensures that Ginny (Kate Winslet) is desperate, bedraggled and ultimately treacherous: suitable punishment, evidently, for a woman who dares to be sexually past her sell-by date.
Set against the striking backdrop of Coney Island in the 1950s, this is a wearisome homage to the theatre of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams. As such, the conversations are all shouted, and the women are half-dressed and half-cut most of the time.
The production values, though, are superb: the design gives the film the feel of a Saul Leiter photograph brought to life. The deep pockets of Amazon Studios are evident in every frame. But even this is marred by lurid use of coloured lighting. Allen was no doubt aiming for the luxuriant melancholy of a Douglas Sirk film or the brash sleaze of Vincente Minnelli’s Some Came Running. However, there’s an oily, deep-fried quality to the tawny glare that creates distraction rather than atmosphere.
