"Anything Else"

For that reason, and maybe some others, Biggs flounders in the role. Biggs can be a charming actor, as in the original "American Pie." But he's best when he keeps it simple, when he plays the kind of earnest, well-intentioned guy that he looks to be. Allen directs nearly all his male leads to speak in his own rhythms, and Biggs can't handle them. When Dobel urges him to ditch his two-bit agent (played with perfunctory weariness by Danny DeVito), Jerry intones, "He's my cross to bear," and the line hits the pavement with a thud. You can hear the way the 30-year-old Allen would have slung the line perfectly, the way a killer short-order cook flips a flapjack. Allen doesn't direct actors; he coaches them in Woodyness. I often wonder if he doesn't subconsciously will them to flop, if only to stroke his own vanity, to reassure himself that he can never really be replaced.

Yet Christina Ricci's Amanda gets it much worse. Ricci has an angel's face and a wowser of a figure: Her curves make you long for the days when seamed stockings were meant for everyday wear. But Allen has written a part for this capable actress that's really no part at all. Amanda's shortcomings are played for rueful laughs at first. We're supposed to laugh at the way she crushes poor Jerry's hopes for a romantic anniversary dinner by announcing that she's already eaten. She then launches into a litany of exactly what she ate, which starts with a whole cheesecake and wraps up with a carton of eggs. Then she laments, in that way some women do to insure that their companion's attention doesn't drift from them for one second, that she's fat.

By the time Amanda announces to Jerry that she's slept with another guy, just to make sure she's still capable of having an orgasm (she is -- "Isn't that good news?" she asks brightly), she's about as cute as a cannonball. Amanda isn't a complex character, with flaws and good qualities that mingle restlessly in our minds: She's an extreme one, one that Allen pretends we're supposed to like, at least on some level (perhaps just a sexual one). But Allen has nothing but contempt for her. It's as if he's saying, "This is the sort of girl we fall for, and we'll do anything for them, and just look what they do to us!" -- without acknowledging that men's own cracked judgment ever has anything to do with it. Ricci's performance is both flat and imploring; she's constantly begging us for something, but damned if we know what it is. All we know is that the insistent tugging is wearying, and we, unlike Jerry, want to get away from her as soon as we can.

But Jerry keeps plugging, because that suits Allen's point: Just look what we'll do for these undeserving women! Jerry even acquiesces when Amanda's mother, Paula (Stockard Channing, who makes the best of a puny, one-note role that's far beneath her talents), moves into their tiny apartment. Paula is the hardened nightmare version of her daughter, times 12 -- she can no longer speak; she only barks. The apple, Allen seems to be telling us with a waggling of a finger, doesn't fall very far from the tree -- and you can always be sure there's a worm inside.

The characters in "Anything Else" don't talk the way anyone really does in New York; they talk like people who think they're in a Woody Allen movie. At one time Allen captured the rhythms of the city better than any other filmmaker, but he's lost touch with its contrapuntal melodies. It's as if he's trying to re-orchestrate those rhythms, to give them to us as he thinks they should sound instead of as they are. I've begun to wonder if he still loves New York at all.

Does he really love anything? I've given up wondering about that, because the answer seems to be no. "Anything Else" isn't just the latest Woody Allen movie; it's also the smallest. His pictures seem to be getting tinier and tinier, and after you've seen them they leave nothing but a tinny echo and a bad taste. "Anything Else" is misanthropy writ small. Allen is too stingy to be generous even with his contempt.

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