(USA, 96 min.)
Written and directed by Woody
Allen
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix,
Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley
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Joaquin Phoenix as
Abe and Parker Posey as Rita. Photo by Sabrina Lantos © 2015 Gravier Productions, Inc. Courtesy SPC/Mongrel |
Is Woody Allen showing a change of
heart in the latest chapter of his ever-prolific career? After the sunny and
unusually optimistic Magic in the Moonlight comes the brainy dramedy Irrational Man. Irrational
Man seems like just another “Woody Allen film” on the surface, but a turn
late in the game offers a wholly unexpected twist of fate for a leading man in
the Woody Allen oeuvre. The film challenges the talky brainiacs who usually gab
in existential name-dropping, rambling philosophy, and literary musing by
making its protagonist Abe Lucas (a smartly cast Joaquin Phoenix) test the
existential conundrums he shares with students in his university lectures.
Philosophy class rarely calls for hands on experience, and Irrational Man mischievously challenges the practice of empty
rhetoric.