Taking a long thrown out murder mystery subplot originally written for Annie Hall, Allen and (Annie Hall co-writer) Marshall Brickman re-team to bring a murder mystery disguised as a chronicle of faltering relationships of upper crust Manhattanites. Carol (Diane Keaton) believes that her aging neighbor, Mr. House (Jerry Adler), has killed his wife and gotten away with it; Carol suddenly turns detective and begins snooping around to find evidence of the crime, all to the exacerbation of book editor and neurotic husband, Larry (Woody Allen, of course). Losing her husband’s support in her mini-investigation, Carol turns to her recently divorced friend, Ted (Alan Alda). Their all-night stakeouts and sleuthing brings out buried feelings towards each other and forces them to deal with their own relationships – past and present. Woody Allen adds a lot of nice touches to a film that is ultimately inconsequential. There are several moments of great suspense, especially when Carol is trapped inside Mr. House’s apartment with Mr. House not knowing she’s there. Or, when Carol – after drinking a little too much at a wine tasting – thinks she saw the thought-to-be murdered Mrs. House on a city bus. And sure, Manhattan Murder Mystery is peppered with Woody Allen’s wit and funny one-liners, but their impact does nothing more than conjure up a smile instead of genuine comedy. Although the murder mystery subplot hints at new possibilities not found in most of his other comedies, Allen’s refusal to delve deeper into his broad theme of bored upper class socialites who choose between invading other people’s privacy or submitting to infidelity out of sheer boredom – fails to lend the film a weight worthy of its subject matter, and instead, hops back and forth from the narrative to just barely keep us interested.
Richard Saad
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006