Deconstructing Harry

Woody Allen's latest is about a major schmuck who's played by Allen himself, and hence is seemingly tailor-made to appeal to those who turned away from the Woodman after his highly publicized escapades of several years back. Unfortunately, it's a total cop-out; the ugly, selfish words and deeds of Allen's protagonist, celebrated writer Harry Block, are implicitly justified by Block's immense talent: it's okay that he's a creep, you see, because he's also a great artist. Blech. The movie's theme, reeking as it does of hubris and self-justification, is so thoroughly repellent that it's a shame that the film also happens to be one of Allen's most formally inventive and dazzling works, the cinematic equivalent of one of his collections of New Yorker short stories from two or three decades ago, with a bit of his more recent pseudo-vérité style thrown in for good measure. The opening credits sequence alone--a mini-masterpiece of non-continuity editing--makes the film worth seeing. In a lot of ways it's Allen's best movie since 1989's Crimes and Misdemeanors. Pity it's so nauseating. Optional. (M D'Angelo)