I was supposed to have seen Woody Allen‘s new movie Irrational Man a day before it screened at the Cannes Film Festival, giving me a chance to review it the same time as the Cannes crowd, but that review was swiftly canceled and perhaps the reviews out of the fest suggest why.
Over at Variety, Scott Foundas calls it one of Allen’s “more offbeat and ambitiously weird projects since the fragmented Deconstructing Harry in 1997, though less conventionally entertaining than recent home runs like Blue Jasmine and Midnight in Paris.” At The Playlist, Jessica Kiang savages the film concluding her review writing, “As an unyielding, deeply fond fan of many of Allen’s earlier films, some of which have combined homicide and humor to far, far, far greater effect, it gives me no pleasure to ask the question that buzzed through my brain at the end of Irrational Man: how long are we going to continue to let Woody Allen get away with murder?”
Over at The Hollywood Reporter, however, David Rooney is much kinder calling it “a darkly humorous quasi-thriller explored with a deft lightness of touch” adding that “[i]t ranks among the director’s more pleasurable entertainments of recent years.” Whom to believe?
Today we have the first clip from the movie featuring stars Parker Posey and Joaquin Phoenix, which you can watch below. Set for a July 17 release the film also stars Emma Stone, Jamie Blackley and Ben Rosenfield.
