Woody Allen has made a name for himself writing, directing and starring in pictures with offbeat humor and strange neurotic characters. "Hollywood Ending" is no exception to this trend. Allen shines in what is perhaps his most neurotic role to date, and his keen acting provides many laugh-out-loud moments.
"Hollywood Ending" is a not-so-subtle satire of Allen's own life. The film is about an old, washed-up director who hasn't directed a film in almost a decade. The director, Val Weisman (Allen), is famous for his psycho-semantic hypochondriac breakdowns during filming, where he insists various illnesses are plaguing him, from shingles to hoof-and-mouth disease.
After 10 years of unemployment, save Canadian deodorant commercials, Weisman finally gets a shot at directing "The City that Never Sleeps," a picture produced by the enormous Galaxie Pictures. The only complication is that the president of Galaxie Pictures, Hal Yaeger (Treat Williams) stole Val's wife Ellie (Tea Leoni) away 10 years ago and is now married to her. Val is torn between accepting the best deal that's come along in years and working for the man who took his wife, even though it is she who is pushing for Val's direction.
Eventually, Val decides to take the picture. But stunningly enough, the night before the filming is to start, Val is struck with psycho-semantic blindness. Unwilling to relinquish the job that he has won, Val's agent, the eternally cheesy Al Hack (Mark Rydell), accompanies him to the set.
When the actors refuse to work with an agent around, Al sets it up so that the Chinese cameraman's translator can be Val's confidant. Unable to see a thing, Val accepts every suggestion made by the translator and randomly spouts stage directions. As the actor and cameraman are completely fed up with Weisman, they figure something must be wrong. The cameraman assumes it is his translator and insists on another. Fortunately, this event coincides with Ellie's coming out to visit the set for the last couple weeks of filming. Al lets her in on the secret and as Val was her suggestion and her ex-husband, she decides to go along with it.
As the day of release draws near, Ellie, Val and Al become nervous about how it will be accepted, as well as how to deal with Val's furious reaction when seeing the picture.
"Hollywood Ending" is one of the funniest films to come out in quite a few years. While lacking the meaning of some of his other films like "Deconstructing Harry," "Ending" still manages to pull of some good scenes. Allen's representation of Val is hysterical, and the possibilities that the plot presents are endless.
This, however, is probably the biggest fault of the film -- it just sits there. After the main plot twist has occurred, the film just milks it for all it is worth until the movie is forced to come to a close. In addition, while Allen does a brilliantly neurotic job acting, he also overacts. Often, his blindness seems far too debilitating. For example, Val can't seem to remember the layout of a room, much less navigate his own apartment.
What is more, Allen never stops waving his arms around randomly and staring off into space. One would think that he could at least detect where those talking to him are located. Unfortunately, this aspect of the film makes many scenes trite and forced, yet funny.
In spite of the film's lack of believability, Allen does a rather brilliant job of poking fun at himself -- presumably one of the main reasons he wrote the script. The washed-up psychotic director hat suits him. There are other aspects to this as well. Like Allen, Val surrounds himself with beautiful women like his ex-wife (Leoni), and after she leaves him, his gorgeously stupid girlfriend Lori (Debra Messing).
Allen also pokes fun at Hollywood and France. When Ellie tells Val about her herbalist, "He's a genius," Val responds, "In Hollywood he's a genius, in New York he's your everyday weirdo." In another part, Ellie says to Val about a director that has, "made some very financially successful American films."
"That should tell you everything you need to know about him," Allen responds.
