Christine Hart

I regret watching this, It will have contributed royalties I wish I could take back. Allen appears to have thinly veiled the relationships of himself and his most significant partners. He seems to have created two versions of himself, young and middle aged, a Roman Polanski character, a Diane Keaton character (apparently cheating on his middle aged self), a Mia Farrow like character (Fanning) in pursuit of a scoop on the Polanski archetype, and then appears to use Gomez's character as a justification for dating Keaton's sisters, I think, and possibly Farrow's adopted daughter. They all have elements of these people, if skewed to fit a narrative. A seemingly self serving one. It reads as if a montage of Allen's life. Perhaps we are supposed to see the nature of time occurring all at once, and that he can't separate his young impulses from his future. He might hope we believe that his youth remains part of him, as justification/excuse for behaviour in later life that has been heavily criticised. It made me feel sick. What I saw was a lack of culpability, a lack of empathy, a script vindicating grooming in several scenes, almost driving the story to blame the victim due to, "just legal", status, and being naive yet ambitious. I found it misogynistic and thin in it's female character development, the most interesting woman being the Keatonesque character, who you actually didn't get to know at all. The younger women unfairly lacked depth and played to stereotypes Allen wanted to paint, which demeaned them and denied them of any dimension. Young women the world over put up with this disgusting belittlement daily. Young men are potrayed with depth, character and insight, young women as sirens, idiots; or both. I felt outraged at the writing for both Gomez and Fanning. Both characters insulted me and we're written with such distain., they were hard to watch. The only thing we see of the more mature Keatonesque character, is her being caught for infidelity; not at all what she went through, or the failings of the older version of Allen that may have contributed. Convenient omissions of truths, that may have shown contrition were they not overlooked. I had no idea this film was such a love letter to himself. It's outrageous and treats viewers with distain and as if intellectually inferior in my personal opinion. The fabulous sets and cinematography could not save it for me. I'd have given it zero stars if that were considered a rating. The film was apparently shot in 2017, and in 2018 under the fire of the "me too" movement, it was put on hold for release indefinitely. Considering the content... Probably a good decision. I understand that this film was a cast of many, and that they were acting a script they thought was interesting, but surely they knew what it was saying. It's a justification. Allen had been publicly involved with Farrow's daughter for some time by then. I was glad to see several of the cast had apologised and expressed regret. One (Chalamet) even gave up his earnings to relevant charities. If I could get that 90 minutes of my life back and revoke any royalties I would. I'm truly sorry for having given this film my time and energy. I'm truly sorry I watched it, to those who it demeans. I honestly don't know what I was thinking. It's a Lady Macbeth sized spot I'll never wash off. Please save yourself, and show respect for those harmed by this work, and don't watch it. Just my personal opinion 🤷🏼‍♀️.