1920s

Relatively well reviewed, and I don’t understand why. “A love letter to Hollywood’s golden era”, perhaps, but only for its first half; once the talkies arrive it decamps to fifties sci-fi and a save-the-world blob plot. The references are real enough (Muybridge’s horse, Keaton’s collapsing house front, some Lovecraft) but recognising one isn’t the same as the film doing anything with it. And the voice work is mostly phoned in. Not Jesse Eisenberg, who does well as a robot who appears for no reason. Trey Parker just does Cartman, in a children’s film, because nobody seems to have asked him not to.

Cusack, in the Allen role, plays David Shayne, a playwright certain of his own genius, and spends the film discovering he isn’t the best writer in the room. That honour goes to Palminteri’s mobster bodyguard, who keeps improving the script from the wings. Cusack plays the straight man to all the noise and never begs for sympathy.

Playing moral compromise is something Cusack has always been good at. Shayne trades his principles one small concession at a time, and Cusack maps that slide without softening it or asking you to forgive him. It foreshadows the negotiated conscience he’d later bring to Grosse Pointe Blank.

Mixed feelings about Woody Allen, clearly, but this is one of my favourites of his.

A film about storytelling. Incredible to look at. Seems to have been an enormous labour of love; I expect my rating will rise or fall significantly upon a rewatch.