Irrational Man is not a terrible movie. If you are a fan of Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine), there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see this movie, despite its rather lukewarm reviews (42% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 48% audience score). This movie didn’t fare very well at the box office, earning just over $4 million. This movie completely flew under my radar. I cannot recall seeing even a single preview for it until I was scrolling through some selections on my Video On Demand network. The movie intrigued me in the same way Midnight in Paris did. Irrational Man was a movie that I did not think I would love but felt would hold my interest. It is certainly not as good as Midnight in Paris, nor does it claim to be. But there is something about Allen’s work in recent years that has me liking him more since about 2007 than I did in the ’80s and ’90s when he was getting most of his acclaim. I’ve never considered myself a huge fan of his movies. I usually like my humor when it is laugh-out-loud funny, and I want my dramas to be serious, while his films tend to fall into the dark comedy/light drama category. I’m also not huge into light-hearted romances. Thus, I’m probably not in Allen’s usual demographic, which has worked perfectly well for both of us. Yet, starting with Match Point and then with Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine, there has been something about him that has convinced me not to write off everything he does before giving it a chance.

I admire most about Allen because he pretty much writes the screenplay for all of the movies he directs. While he is an esteemed director, I think that he is an even more revered screenwriter. As mentioned in the first paragraph, I usually prefer something more profound than what Allen can provide me. However, sometimes a simple escape at the movie is all you need. And his themes are often more profound than his approach. Heck, Irrational Man is about a depressed man who rediscovers his zest for life only after deciding he wants to try to plan and execute the perfect murder. It is the same theme that Allen has visited in some of his other movies, such as Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream, which have a darker feel than Irrational Man. Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line, Reservation Road) is a good as ever as a newly hired downtrodden philosophy professor at Graylin College, a small liberal-arts school in Rhode Island.

Set in the present day, Abe (Phoenix) arrives at Graylin with the prestige of a professor who has a great philosophical mind and the baggage of someone involved in scandals everywhere he has been. He’s a drunk (he drinks single-malt scotch on the quad of the campus). He sleeps with his students. He’s overweight and wears t-shirts that clearly show off his potbelly. He more or less does what he wants to do and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. This fits right in with Graylin, which is sort of a breeding ground for gossip. People want to get close to Abe because of his semi-celebrity status, but he is more content staying in his professor’s housing and drinking. He has lost his passion for life which includes his writing.

Rita (Parker Posey – Superman Returns, Best in Show) is one throwing herself at Abe. A fellow professor, the married Rita forces herself onto Abe, and he only seems to allow her in because resisting her relentless efforts is too much work. The two are soon sleeping together. Jill (Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love., The Amazing Spider-Man), a student in Abe’s Ethical Strategies class, further complicates things by falling for her intelligent yet uninspired professor. She loves his tragic past. She loves his observations on life. Even though she currently has a boyfriend who is perfect for her, she loves him, as even Abe says. This is the part of the story that doesn’t really work for me. I think Allen is sort of a dreamer here. It’s hard to believe in a situation where a young, beautiful, put-together woman like Jill would fall for a guy like Abe, especially in Abe’s current state. You do have to suspend belief here.

So if you have these characters all coming together, then you need some sort of plot. In the trailer, you see Abe in two different lights. The funk that he is in at the beginning, followed by the even that energizes him. The score in both the trailer and the film does a great job of shifting the tone. So what is the event? As I eluded to above, it is the planning and executing of the perfect murder. I won’t get into the details, but Allen does an excellent job of exploring how the possibility of pulling off this ultimate crime can get the juices flowing of even the most despondent individual. It’s pretty remarkable. And herein also lies the humor (albeit slight) of the movie.

Some have called this movie lazy. I suppose that is a fair criticism, but not everything, a well-known writer/director has to be award-winning material. Again, I am not a Woody Allen apologist. I would not even classify myself as a fan of his. But he is one of the hardest working people in Hollywood. It seems like he has a new movie every year. Irrational Man was light-hearted and easy to digest. Sometimes that’s all you want in a film. With that said, I’m glad I didn’t shell out $12 and see this in the theater. This movie is nothing more than a rental.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 7.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing  8/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 9/10 (kind of a jazzy, devilish score that reminds you of a crime caper movie of the old days…it works very, very well with this particular movie)
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 8/10 (I think a lot of us envision and committing the perfect murder in our fantasies…only a handful act on this)
81.5%

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• Husbands and Wives
• Crimes and Misdemeanors
• Blue Jasmine
• Hollywood Ending
• You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger