Irrational Man Analysis

Irrational Man (2015)

Written and Directed by: Woody Allen

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone

Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2015.

This film is a creative cocktail of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and the classic Woody Allen - it's a blend of philosophy, infidelity, crime, morality set in a funny, light hearted world. The film has a difference in the way the characters emote, behave; and the way it's intended for us to feel. In a lot of scenes, the characters are going through a lot of conflict, and intense drama - for example: the revelation of a partner cheating on them, the revelation of a partner being a murderer, break ups, etc. But we never feel the intensity of these scenes, they are all shown from a very large perspective, about how all of this generally happens in life - the absurdity of life. The light hearted treatment of heavy scenes, puts the filmmaker on a higher stance. The way the scenes cut from an intense scene, abruptly - to a light hearted scene with jazz music, with poetic voice over - is what makes the transition to be seamless, between both the tones.

Woody Allen's way of portraying women - though he portrays them in his zone, free spirited, promiscuous, liberated, open to life - the depth and layers that he adds beyond this, makes every woman and every character in his film so unique and different from each other. The unique aspect is that he doesn't judge his characters, he sort of plays god and presents everyone with some honesty. He establishes characters with simple tools like, body language and dialogue. The ending of this film sort of surprised me because of the way it brings everything to normalcy, and this whole thing is just a phase in her life.