A Rainy Day in New York – a movie review

by The Flamingo

I began the new year with Woody Allen’s latest movie. He is one of my favorite directors, so every year I eagerly anticipate each new movie he writes and directs. His movies are nowadays released outside the US, because of the strong #metoo movement happening there. Nonetheless, I believe his work is brilliant and it speaks to my way of seeing life. 

Woody Allen is a very dedicated New Yorker, more than 90% of his movies are shot there. So New York itself is always a character in his movies. “A Rainy Day in New York” is a Valentine, an ode to this amazing city and for the days long gone by. The movie has a young set of characters: Elle Fanning, Timothée Chalamet, and Selena Gomez at its center because Woody Allen loves love triangles (actually all shapes of geometrical forms are displayed in his movies). In addition to the young people, there is also a cast of mature stars like Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Cherry Jones. 

New York is featured in its beautiful splendor throughout the story. A young college couple is spending the weekend there, he being a native of upper Manhattan, a veritable New York snob and she a rich beauty queen from somewhere in mid America, self declared as a non republican. He is eager to share with her all the old fashioned beauties of Manhattan, like The Carlyle with the piano player who sings old Broadway tunes, or The Pierre Hotel with the Central Park view, an exposition at Moma and a French Michelin Star restaurant called “Daniel’s”. Their way splits at the beginning, each traveling their own path in New York, each having their own adventure. I will not reveal any more details about the action in this romantic comedy, enough to say it’s hilarious sometimes and dramatic as well in Woody Allen’s signature style. 

What I liked the most is the old fashioned vibe throughout the movie. I am one of those persons who swoons at Jazz songs, at the idealization of love, at drinks in romantic hotel bars, at carriage rides and wonderful displays of art. Woody Allen purposefully creates an unrealistic display of the characters in their early 20s, maybe the way he would want the world to look like today. But alas, not so many of our youth today have movie conversations about the likes of Grace Kelly, Gone with the Wind, Irving Berlin, Maurice Chevalier and Charlie Parker. The characters wear tweed jackets and old style cashmere. For me, it’s definitely a pleasure, for other viewers an eye roll. It depends of course on the way you look at the world. 

Throughout the film the viewers are exposed to Allen’s obsessions: “anxiety, paranoia, hostility”, but to his hopelessly romantic side as well: walks in the rain, kisses under the Delacorte Clock in Central Park, brooding alone sipping drinks in the Carlyle bar listening to jazz, playing the piano in some grand upper Manhattan apartments. 

So, if you are an old fashioned romantic like myself, with anxieties and some paranoiac thoughts from time to time, with a taste for some “snobbish” conversations once in a while and a sense of self irony, you will definitely enjoy this movie. Of course, the location is also a bonus for those in love with New York. 

Photo from Flamingo‘s archive. See the official trailer here.