Sports writer Lenny Weinrib is married to Amanda. Amanda decides she wants a child but can't afford to take a year away from her art gallery projects, so they adopt. Over the years the child strengthens their marriage and turns out to be incredibly clever and gifted. Curious about his parents Lenny sets out to find Max's mother (understanding the father to be dead). Expecting her to be intelligent he is surprised to locate a hooker who aspires to make it to Broadway and is working her way their in adult movies. He tries to get to know her and seeks to better her lot in life by getting her out of the game so that his son won't grow up to locate his mother to find she is an aging porn star. This causes tensions between Lenny and Linda but also at home as the cracks in his marriage begin to show.
Woody Allen's films do tend to be similar if not the same certainly the last few years have seen him return to a regular light comedy style (I'm not complaining). However they potentially could be all the same. Here he cleverly mixes Greek tragedy into the story to make it sufficiently different. The story is certainly different, with a hooker taking center stage, however Allen's trade mark wit is still very much on show. The Greek chorus line is merely a different way of delivering his usual one liners and funny observations and doesn't distract at all. It's very straight forward, but the Greek touch makes it feel fresh and new.
Woody Allen is as good as ever he maybe looks a bit old, but he's so good at what he does that after 5 minutes it doesn't matter. Sorvino is excellent in a daffy role it's not the sort of role usually rewarded by awards but she deserved the Oscar for a funny performance. Bonham-Carter is not very good as an `Noo Yorka' girl but luckily she has little screen time. The support cast is full of quality and lots of well known (if not famous) faces in small roles, F Abraham Murray is the head of the chorus line but the support includes Peter Weller, Jack Warner, Tony Siricio (Soprano's Paulie), Michael Rapaport, Paul Giamatti the list goes on.
Overall this is yet another quality product from Woody Allen, it's hardly ground breaking stuff but when someone can be consistently this good year after year then you've got to give him his dues.
