Emma A

This film was confused, one-dimensional and ended in absurdity. I was interested in its attempt, at the start, to portray the pressures and oppression Black people face (microaggressions, trying to fit in) but then it went rapidly downhill, trying to be a cross between Get out/ some Noel Clarke nonsense film. The ridiculous outbursts which come out of nowhere, the unbelievable plotting,(Deliveroo, anyone?) the mother who had left her children because of what? There was an attempt to fill in that plot-hole with the line about the father she'd left being a 'bad man', but this was confused as the first scene didn't even mention him. Ironically, the dark-skinned children are portrayed as crazed irrational sinister beings from the ' hood determined to destroy and destruct, rather than hurt and abandoned children. This plays into racist dehumanising stereotypes. Ultimately, this was trash. Written and directed by a Black person too. Lord have mercy.

What an odd film! It had a thin veneer of charm and it was very sentimental.It felt like Allen's fantasy of New York and the past. Dated references to '30s jazz standards, 40s literary refernces yet spoken by Gen Z's characters. Unconvincing. That the Ashleigh character with her schoolgirl skirts is desired by old men is portrayed as benign and sweet rather than creepy. New York is portrayed as virtually only inhabited by rich white bourgeois intellectual privileged types yet there's a joke about gentrification. Elle Fanning is annoying as a hand-flapping ditzy, self-obsessed would-be journalist who looked like she didn't know how to act. Selena Gomez and the mother are the only ones who shone out of a raft of one -dimensional female characters. A poor effort. The scene where the film director can't bear to watch his own film I imagine was taken from Allen's real life!

Watching the series again because it was so good, with such complexity and depth.Elliot has so many problems and tends to run away from them that it's hard to understand him as he's such a shifting entity and the most enigmatic character of the series, despite being the central character. His daughter Julie is initially very very annoying but one begins to understand her pain and frustation to get Elliot to engage, and she develops and grows. I would have liked to have seen more of the north African and West African communities and especially Black women in jazz : this was the missing element for me. Am looking forward to a second season.

I can't believe that there are so many positive reviews! Instead of either doing something psychologically intriguing or emotionally interesting grief and loneliness, the film descends into clique, absurdity and lazy lazy caricatures. I think far from being a feminist film there's a nasty whiff of misogyny and ageism too:heaven forbids that young and old women could ever be friends. And a waste of the excellent Isabelle Huppert.So disappointing.

Agree!One of the most unsympathetic characters I've watched on film for a long time.And no real explanation of why she was so unpleasant and miserable:might have had something to do with her mum, but who knows? A poor film with tissue -thin mostly unpleasant characters.