A Rainy Day in New York (2020)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on May 26, 2021 @ tonymacklin.net.

Some viewers may think A Rainy Day in New York is just another tired, late-in-life Woody Allen movie. It may not reach the magical status of Midnight in Paris (2011), but it possesses memorable qualities.

One of them is that Woody still can write. But perhaps the most significant factor is the performance by Elle Fanning as Ashleigh - one of Woody's most memorable female characters. She is not just the ditsy, young woman she may at first appear.

Ashleigh, who is from Arizona, accompanies her boyfriend Gatsby (Timothee Chalamet) on a trip to New York City from their upstate New York college. He is supposed to go to a soiree his rich parents are having, but he wants to avoid it and go elsewhere in the city. He has something in common with the original Gatsby.

A Rainy Day in New York is set in Woodyland with a musical soundtrack that gives palpable spirit to the vision. Does Erroll Garner ever get tired? Chet Baker lives again.

Gatsby and Ashleigh are separated and have separate adventures. Ashleigh wants to be a journalist and the trip offers her a chance to meet some famous movie figures.

She is naive and inexperienced, but she is driven to seek the truth. Her major quality is that she is guileless. Her lack of guile is what appeals to the successful men she meets. An actor Francisco Vega (Diego Luna), a film collaborator Ted Davidoff (Jude Law), and especially a director Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) are all smitten by her rare quality.

She becomes a muse for Pollard, because she takes him back to a time before he got in the rat race of success. After a life of compromise and hypocrisy, the director sees Ashleigh as a being who brings him back to yearning for simple truth.

Reconsidering the past is a major theme of A Rainy Day in New York. Gatby's mother (Cherry Jones) has a strong scene in which she tells her son about her hidden past. She has spent her life trying to transcend it.

Despite the strong performances, there is one performance that is a lesson in how not to act. Unlike Owen Wilson's wonderful portrayal in Midnight in Paris, Timothee Chalamet comes up short in A Rainy Day in New York. When he speaks Woody's dialogue, there is no processing before he spouts a line. After a character mentions "Cactus," immediately he responds "rattlesnakes." But there's no thought, just a too quick response. All through the film Chalamet delivers Woody's dialogue without processing thought. It deserves thought.

Despite its flaws, A Rainy Day in New York is quite a trip. Past and present come together.

For Woody, muses still matter.