February 3, 1995 | Miami Rhapsody is the funniest Woody Allen movie ever made by someone other than Woody Allen.
Right from the start, as Sarah Jessica Parker faces the camera and begins a hilariously self-deprecating monologue about her character’s personal and professional hang-ups, it’s obvious that writer-director David Frankel has given Annie Hall, Manhattan and other Allen comedies a long and careful study. The setting is Miami, not Manhattan, but the humor resounds with the same urban Jewish edginess that abounds in Allen’s movies.
Indeed, Frankel evokes Allen’s trademark style even during the opening credits, which he presents, as Allen usually does, to the accompaniment of a romantic pop classic. (Frankel’s choice — Louis Armstrong’s jaunty rendition of “Just One of Those Things” — is inspired.)
And then there’s Mia Farrow, who plays Parker’s mother. During every moment that she appears on screen, looking and sounding very much like she did back when she and Allen when on- and off-screen partners, it’s practically impossible not to think of the other movies that clearly inspired this one.
All of this would be greatly distracting, and more than a little annoying, if Frankel’s debut effort as a feature filmmaker weren’t so splendidly entertaining. The good news is, Frankel has concocted a light, bright and insightful comedy that succeeds very impressively on its own merits as a seriocomic consideration of love, marriage, infidelity and other misadventures. Miami Rhapsody is a very witty variation on familiar themes, engaging and appealing in almost all of the right ways, with an absolutely marvelous ensemble cast.
Parker is Gwyn Marcus, a perky but discontented advertising copywriter who receives some unsettling surprises shortly after announcing her engagement to Matt (Gil Bellows), an animal-behavior researcher. Gwyn has some sweetly romantic, frankly old-fashioned ideas about marriage and fidelity. Much to her shock, she discovers she is the only one left in her upper-middle-class family who shares her views.
Jordan (Kevin Pollak), her brother, leaves his pregnant wife (Barbara Garrick) to pursue an affair with a beautiful model (Naomi Campbell) who just happens to be his business partner’s wife. Leslie (Carla Gugino), Gwyn’s younger sister, is newly married to a tight-fisted football player (Bo Eason), but she’s eager to remain a sexually active adventuress.
Vic (Paul Mazursky), Gwyn’s father, suspects Nina (Farrow), his wife and Gwyn’s mother, is having an affair. He’s right, of course — Nina is spending her afternoons with Antonio (Antonio Banderas), the hunky Cuban émigré who cares for Gwyn’s invalid grandmother — but he’s not telling the whole story. Vic, too, is enjoying extracurricular activities. The only difference is, his lover, a neurotic travel agent (Kelly Bishop), isn’t nearly as stable as Nina’s partner in adultery.
Miami Rhapsody may well be the movie that turns Parker, an attractive and accomplished comic actress, into a genuine movie star. In a role very similar to the one Woody Allen saves for himself in his own films, she serves as a kind of hectoring tour guide through Miami’s most picturesque locations, escorting the audience from one amusing interlude to the next, all the while maintaining a skeptical distance as she listens to rationalizations and observes confrontations.
Occasionally, Gwyn lets her guard down to note that, hey, Antonio really is hot stuff, and maybe — like mother, like daughter — she would enjoy some stolen hours in his strong arms. And when she’s alone with her grandmother, who has been silenced by a stroke, she admits: “I’ve always run away from conflict.” Of course, she realizes that her grandmother has done the same thing. “But that was a little bit different — you were running from the Nazis.”
More often, however, Gwyn is critical, not confessional. When her father complains that his grown children have always placed him on a pedestal, Gwyn cuts him short: “Don’t worry — we lowered it a bit the year you voted for Bush.”
Farrow is very engaging as a woman who isn’t at all ashamed of savoring illicit thrills, but who also is smart enough to know when enough is enough. Mazursky, Pollak and Gugino also have their moments, while Banderas manages to turn his stereotypical character into someone endearingly vulnerable.
Frankel occasionally goes overboard in supplying a steady stream of wisecracks and one-liners for his characters, betraying his origins as a TV sitcom writer. And Miami Rhapsody as a whole lacks the darker edge of melancholy that colors many of Allen’s better efforts. The people and the plotting are simply too facile to have much substance. But, then again, under the right circumstances, facile can be very, very funny.
