I’m a sucker for an overly literate screenplay.  It’s probably the prospective English major in me.  Players talking over each other with arcane vocabulary terms that only the ACT uses with any certain frequency makes me feel enlightened and laugh at the same time.  It’s pithy.  Pair it with a cynical Brooklyn accent, and you have a Woody Allen film.

Since the blog is limited only to films in glorious black and white, Allen’s “Manhattan” comes to mind.  As the title suggests, the movie encompasses all that is great about the Big Apple. The film is lifted by airy wide shots of brownstone walk-ups and aerial views of Central Park.  The characters stroll by the Carlisle hotel, frequent the Museum of Modern Art and dine at the Russian tea room.  Allen’s love of the city is almost tangible.  However, the film is hardly just a slideshow of New York City.  As in any Woody Allen film, there is a fair amount of satire which points a finger at the hypocrisy of the typical New Yorker—the typical human being.

The movie begins with four Manhattanites chatting over dinner.  Each of them has their own set of problems.  Isaac (Woody Allen) is a comedy TV show writer who just quit his showbiz job in order to focus on his non-existent novel.  His friend, Yale, feels guilty that he is having an affair with a journalist named Mary (Allen’s frequent costar, Diane Keaton) who comically uses the fact she is from Philadelphia to affirm her morality.  Isaac criticizes this relationship, saying that they are pseudointellectuals, the “ones that would get involved in discussions of existential realism;  they probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and mispronounce words like allegorical and didacticism.”  However, Isaac’s criticism is lost on Yale, who cannot get over that Isaac is seeing a seventeen year old, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter).

As Isaac becomes guilty about dating Tracy and Yale’s guilt consumes him, they break off from their relationships.  Yale’s breakup with Mary brings Isaac closer to her, and after a romantic walk in Central Park with Mary’s dachshund, Waffles, they soon begin a relationship.  Yet, just as the metropolis of Manhattan changes, so do their feelings for each other.

The movie develops into an interesting portrait on integrity, faith and self-perception.  With appearances by Meryl Streep and Wallace Shawn, this film brings tears, laughs, and personal reflection.  Not to mention an expansion of personal vocabulary.