Product Details

• Actors: Will Farrell, Amanda Peet
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001CK9W1U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,899 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

widescreen and full screen versions

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an inventive reworking of familiar Woody Allen themes, October 30, 2005

By 

Nathan Andersen "film lover, philosophy profe... (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Melinda and Melinda (DVD)

For those familiar with Woody Allen's films there is nothing radically new here; but it is a refreshingly novel approach to his familiar obsessions for fans, as well as a nice introduction for newcomers. The central conceit of the film -- that the "same" story can be told quite differently from the point of view of tragedy and of comedy -- works as a clever reminder and allusion to films like Rashomon (in which the narration of events is shown to be inseparable from the values and perspectives of the narrator) but also as an intriguing reflection on Allen's own body of work that for some time was alternating between slapstick comedy and Bergmanesque drama. His best films, like Hannah and Her Sisters and Manhattan and Crimes and Misdemeanors have alternated between a tragic core and a comic and usually hilarious undercurrent. Here Woody Allen has opted for a separation between these, and told the whole story both ways at once. As a thought experiment it is a very intriguing idea, and as a set of stories it is fairly effective though not quite as effective as some of his very best work. One very nice touch was to have the theoretical discussions about tragedy and comedy that form the backdrop of his story take place at a dinner conversation, with Wallace Shawn as one of the central figures. In this way, the discussions, which are only partially effective, can work as a modest parody (or homage?) of "conversation" films like "My Dinner with Andre" that starred Wallace Shawn. Will Ferrell does a great reworking of the traditionally insecure and neurotic character that Woody Allen plays; and Radha Mitchell gives a brilliant dual performance as Melinda and Melinda. Overall the film was quite intriguing and enjoyable; it was only disappointing to this viewer when compared with some of the best of Allen's films.

61 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come on People, October 13, 2005

By 

Kenneth E. Wagner Jr. (Highland Springs, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Melinda and Melinda (DVD)

It has been a while since I have wrote a review for Amazon, the only thing that could move me to do so is the hypocritical bad reviews for this film. Woody Allen is one of the last genuis directors we have. Everyone uses a seperate standard to judge his films. If this film were made by anyone else, then everyone would rave about it. This is the best film you will see this year, if you like artistic films. But some people feel this is "not up to Woody's standards." More about that later.

The film is, in its concept, more daring than 99% of the crap you will see this year, last year, or next year. Is the world comic or tragic, the film asks (in a world where films usually ask: how many explosions can I create).

Woody then gives us an interesting comic tale, and an interesting tragic tale, both well shot, well directed, and well acted. Let me repeat: both of these are IN THE SAME FILM! Woody constantly re-invents himself in an intelligent way.

The comic tale is indeed FUNNY, and intellectually so. Will Ferrell is perfect and perfectually directed to play his role, and we are not given the easy, expected storyline, but one that keeps us paying attention. In the tragic role I challenge reviewers to find a more emotional scene than the final one of Melinda's breakdown.

Antything Else was wonderful: a film with teen stars Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci in which the director gets an artistic performance out of both, a film in which intelligent TALKING, not car chases and fart scenes, dominate. But Melinda and Melinda is willing to be a pure concept film, but one in which each story is told with loving care and attention to the details of each characters humanity, capturing the magic of Woody's past films like Manhattan, Annie Hall, or Deconstructing Harry. Rent or buy it! This is our generation's Hemingway, Da Vinci, etc.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reenactment Catharsis, July 17, 2006

By 

My Uncle Stu (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Melinda and Melinda (DVD)

I didn't see this movie in the theater when it initially came out. I was watching every Woody Allen movie in the post-Mia Farrow era, near opening night in the theater, with the nerdy-Jewish version of a rowdy audience, for a while, until they really started to disappoint. He was on a great streak there, culminating in the mid-nineties with a pair from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, the gloriously upbeat, joyful Everyone Says I Love You, followed the next year with the negative, bitter, (but also funny) Deconstructing Harry. The quality then dropped off precipitously, first with Kenneth Branagh's near-epileptic Allen-imitation of him in Celebrity, followed soon thereafter by the lame, vintage-Vaudeville style comedies such as Small Time Crooks and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, movies that felt old at their premiers. But "Melinda and Melinda," (or is we say in Boston "Melinder err-ah Melinder,") followed by Match Point (they say it's good, I haven't seen it yet), is hopefully the beginning of a rebound into another great run.

Like I said, I didn't see this when it came out, but I did read an interview with Woody Allen at the time this movie came out. He described this movie as something of a personal experiment for him. He really wanted to explore the question of whether life is fundamentally tragic or humorous, and he thought that answers would be reviewed in the process of trying to make a movie that told the same story as both a tragedy and a comedy. In this interview, I remember him acknowledging that the movie was a failure in that respect, that he didn't learn anything about the fundamental differences between comedy and tragedy. But- displaying at least a modicum of promotional instincts- he described the movie as a success anyway. He was half right and selling himself short. I think this movie does speak to the differences between tragedy and comedy, does contain its share of lessons. And I will give him credit for the movie also being a success from the entertainment point of view as well. The comedic parts are not all that funny, and the tragic parts are painfully unpleasant in the same unwatchable way as "Interiors," and yet somehow it does work as a single cohesive movie.

But we don't get a real chance to fully explore the question. Here's the problem: Woody Allen cheats his premise. He does not show the same story portrayed two different ways. But there is a lesson in the ways he swindles the audience. The stories are different, with the tragic version being rich in heartrending and sometimes disturbing details, and the comedy version conveniently skipping over the more gloomy details of the back-story and focusing on the comedic elements of the relationships in the movie. I would say there is a lesson there. Turns out the universe in neither tragic nor comic. It's indifferent. The Universe is not embarrassed when you track toilet paper out of the bathroom and the Universe doesn't celebrate when you lose your winter weight. It's a big vibrating nothingness with chunks, chunks that are themselves even more vibrating nothingness of lessness. It's quite uninterested in your life. Sorry.

Things are sad and funny in our minds as we interpret them, and a skilled artist can manipulate any subject to relatively emphasize or de-emphasize the more tragic or more humorous aspects of things. The lesson illustrated so well here: How we interpret thoughts and actions color our emotional experience. But it is a reciprocal relationship. It is just as true that our emotional state colors how we interpret thoughts and actions. So, the shifting back and forth is quite unsettling, which is part of the point.

I'm recommending it overall, a good enough movie a hopefully a sign of a return to form. The DVD doesn't have any extras, which is fine, I think those voiceover tracks- though occasionally very cool- are generally gimmicky. Outtakes and theatrical trailers- unnecessary.

Not one of Allen's greater movies, but not bad either, better then most of the garbage out there. Both stories center around a character, Melinda, played by Mia Farrow look-alike/act-alike Radha Mitchell, who enters a dinner party and shakes up the lives of established couples. As with most Woody Allen films, we get to see couples break up in particularly cruel eruptions of infidelity. The characters in Woody Allen's movies are themselves so emotionally tone-deaf, self-absorbed neurotic pawns who mete out callousness and then languish in guilt. All as portrayed by a male lead not so subtly imitating Woody Allen and a female lead imitating Mia Farrow. Kind of funny. And sad.