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Melinda and Melinda
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 40 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 30 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Woody Allen
Directed by: Woody Allen
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 18, 2005
DVD: October 25, 2005
Running Time: 100 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for adult situations involving sexuality, and some substance material
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Will Ferrell, Jonny Lee Miller, Radha Mitchell, Amanda Peet, Chloë Sevigny, and Wallace Shawn
This film combines romantic comedy and drama in a way that Woody Allen, unique among filmmakers, likes to contrast. (Fox Searchlight)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Anything Else Cassandra's Dream Celebrity Crimes and Misdemeanors Deconstructing Harry Hannah and Her Sisters Hollywood Ending Manhattan Match Point Mighty Aphrodite Scoop Small Time Crooks Sweet and Lowdown The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
USA Today Mike Clark
Smart, satisfying and compact but so modest in scale that only true-blue fans will sense - immediately - that it's Woody Allen's best outing in many years.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
In its complexity and wit, this is one of his (Allen's) best recent films.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Allen gives us at least half a classic comedy - more than we usually get at the movies these days - while having some elegant fun with an idea that has intrigued poets and smart alecks through the ages: the interchangeability of comedy and tragedy.
Read Full Review >Empire Emma Cochrane
It has great performances, snappy one-liners and a likeably tricksy structure, all wrapped up in an affirmative antidote to life’s daunting complexities. Welcome back, Woody.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Full of entertaining vignettes that eventually make a happy mockery, as they're meant to do, of the tragedy vs. comedy dialectic.
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Woody's back on solid ground with his first memorable pic of the new millennium.
Read Full Review >Variety Deborah Young
Radha Mitchell stirs memories of complex Allen heroines from Annie Hall on down, even if the action is dispersed via a larger ensemble cast which he currently favors.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
With Melinda and Melinda he's (Allen) not just going through the motions. He's saying the game isn't over before you laugh till it hurts.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This is closer to an Allen comeback than anything else he's made recently. Maybe he'll achieve it with his next movie, "Match Point," due this year.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Though Melinda is no masterpiece, it’s also an Allen film that requires almost zero special pleading.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
More accomplished, adventurous and original. Instead of Allen's usual investigation into the nature of existence, this new film looks at the way stories are created, particularly comedies.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
As he (Allen) interweaves two versions of the Melinda story, one meant to be bathed in pathos, the other sprinkled with whimsy, it becomes apparent that his notions of comedy and tragedy do not quite correspond either to scholarly dogma or to everyday usage.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
It's emotionally more alive than anything Allen has done since "Sweet and Lowdown," in 1999. I was absorbed in it, and I liked parts of it. And I wish to God it were better.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The best reason to see Melinda and Melinda is Radha Mitchell, who has her grabbiest role (or two of them) since she broke through with "High Art."
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
tTere are two things going for Melinda and Melinda: Woody's not in it and Radha Mitchell is.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's breezy enough, though, as a romantic comedy. And the stakes at risk in it are more grown-up and weighty than those in most Hollywood fare. Like Allen himself, you could do worse.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Whatever you think of Melinda and Melinda, you have to admire Woody Allen for this: After years of criticism that he didn't use people of color in films, he's written two interracial romances.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The dialogue rings tinny in the ear, as if enunciated in the phony arc of a stage light.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Has a fascinating premise; it's the execution that's sloppy.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Allen's best effort since 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown," but that's not saying a lot.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
But Allen can still write a good joke and there are some here. Not enough to say he has returned to form, but enough to remind you of what that form was.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
Allen has assembled an attractive cast and given most of them clichés to inhabit. He has also stinted on inventiveness.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Neither comedy nor tragedy, the movie is closest to genteel soap opera.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Melissa Levine
It's merely all right--very high-concept and on its way to interesting, but never there.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Beautifully shot by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, the movie is watchable, sporadically amusing and ultimately frustrating, because Allen is capable of so much more, but doesn't appear interested -- or willing -- to push himself any longer.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Brendan Bernhard
From its austere opening credits to its screechy women, this 35th film by Woody Allen looks and sounds like a dozen other Allen movies.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Ken Tucker
When are we going to get a generation of actors who will finally decline to succumb to The Woody Mystique, and refuse to accept a proffered role without first deciding whether the entire damn project is worthwhile?
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Not since Edward Norton kicked his own butt in Fight Club has the screen witnessed such a brutal self-drubbing.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's all very well to say that laughter and tears are just a heartbeat apart, but both variations on Melinda's story bear the unmistakable mark of Allen's morose sensibilities.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The Australian actress Radha Mitchell is the only reason to see the movie: She has an extraordinary open face and a way of mixing dreaminess with sudden bursts of lacerating emotion that recalls Jessica Lange.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Even these actors -- who, in other pictures, are often wonderful in distinctive ways -- don't seem like themselves: It's as if they've been pulverized and pressed into convenient actor shapes.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Allen's view of what's "deeply real" feels ever more deeply bogus as the movie progresses, his trademark wit having calcified into pastiche and unintended self-parody.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The grave story is leaden, the comic story isn't funny, and the comparison--the rivalry--between the two modes is never crystallized.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's disconcerting to see Ferrell, a master of macho psychosis, adopt the stop-and-go dithering of Woody Allen-style neurosis.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This is mainly a narrative brain-teaser like "Memento" or "The Jacket"; merely keeping up with the game requires so much energy that the thinness of the material becomes fully apparent only toward the end.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Give Woody Allen credit for ambition. Failing at one movie wasn't enough. Nearly anyone can do that; it happens all the time. He's chosen to fail at two simultaneously.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
A second-rate comedy and a third-rate drama, Melinda And Melinda gives viewers two unsatisfying movies in one. The only genuine tragedy here involves a once-brilliant comedy writer plunging further into a seemingly permanent artistic freefall.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
These days, Allen's pictures are more like snuff films, in which the viewer must suffer both gifted actors committing screen hara-kiri and a once-brilliant filmmaker soldiering on with his long, bullheaded decline.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Craig A. gave it a1:
Just rubbish. Stilted, unnatural dialogue, wooden performances, pretensious and bourgious. Its concept is supposedly the same story told two different ways. Its not. Its two different stories told the same way - badly.
Tony B. gave it a4:
Although it has an interesting premise, there is really only one reason to see this film, and that is Radha Mitchell's performance, one of the best of the year.
Susan M gave it a1:
I rented this pitiful "film." I am appalled that anybody was willing to fund this. It reminded me of a beginning acting class where people pair up and do scenes in front of the class and "act" with all the realism of a piece of wood. Moreover, the archaic dialoge just sounded ridiculous. Does Mr. Allen ever listen to contemporary conversations? Oh, and everyone is an accomplished musician and they only like Cole Porter! "I was walking along a sidewalk and there was a piano. I used to play in high school. Actually, I gave concerts." Puh-lease. The only cast member I didn't pity was Amanda Peet, who emerged from this mess without losing any dignity. Can't say the same for everyone else. Hey, what did you guys think?
Wally S. gave it an8:
Woody Allen is in good shape, he creates a wonderfull plot full of autentic characters that are performed with majesty. Definetly, a cult film to see over and over again, just to capture the delightfull essence of the story, that is great.
Greg T. gave it a0:
Rhonda asks how anyone can hate a Woody Allen movie...easy, just watch this one.
Larry R. gave it an8:
Delightful. Woddy Allen shows again the promise of his earlier work. The interiors were over done and unbelievable, distracting from the flow. Maybe we will once again see the glories of yesteryear.
Doyle P. gave it a10:
Couldn't take my eyes and mind off this movie. My only criticisim is that the characters might have been five or ten years older and therefore their problems would have been more pressing. Thanks, Woody.
