Everyone Says I Love You

Woody Allen's latest directorial "experiment" is a frivolous musical about an extended upper-class family living on New York City's Upper East Side. Light and intelligent film though lacking many of the neurotic theatrics Allen is known for, Everyone's all-star cast includes Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts, and, of course, Woody Allen as a down and out divorced dad who divides his time between New York and Paris. Everyone here is charming as his or her appointed New York caricature--debutante, liberal dad, supermom, pining boyfriend, gawky teenage girl, etc., but the film possesses all the depth of a musical...which isn't much. As the consummate New Yorker, Allen manages to slip in all sorts of Big Apple venues--Harry Winston's and Le Cirque to name a few. Everyone Says I Love You contains traces of sentimentality and is, perhaps, a coming-of-middle-age film for Allen, who is definitely softer and sillier as he sings his way to sixty. Optional. (A. Glover)