SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY (12A)

SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY (12A)

 

Run time: 94mins

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

 

Cast: Owen Wilson, Rhys Ifans, Imogen Poots Jennifer Aniston, Kathryn Hahn, Richard Lewis, Cybill Shepherd, Quentin Tarantino, Will Forte, Joanna Lumley

Synopsis:  Young Hollywood starlet Isabella recalls how the actions of charming Broadway director, Arnold, changed her life forever. A classic style New York romantic comedy with touches of screwball and a sprinkling of terrific cameos, the former escort reminisces to a reporter about her rags to riches fairy tale – a chain of events affecting the lives of everyone involved, including Arnold’s wife Delta, leading man Seth, playwright Joshua and even Isabella’s therapist, Jane.

URL: www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk

 

The sometime darling auteur of Hollywood, Peter Bogdanovich directs, scripts and makes a fleeting appearance in this pastiche of a classic screwball comedy. Renowned as a film historian, director, writer, actor, producer and critic, he was part of the new wave of ‘New Hollywood” directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino and Francis Ford Coppola

His three most celebrated films, The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s up Doc? (1972), Paper Moon (1973) were seminal works of 1970s American cinema.

She’s Funny That Way  recounts the interconnected personal lives of the cast and crew of a Broadway production. When established director Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson) casts his call girlfriend-turned-actress Isabella “Izzy” Patterson (Imogen Poots) in a new play to star alongside his wife Delta (Kathryn Hahn) and her ex-lover Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), a zany love tangle forms with hilarious twists. Jennifer Aniston plays Izzy’s therapist Jane, who is consumed with her own failing relationship with Arnold’s playwright Joshua Fleet (Will Forte), who is also developing a crush on Izzy.

Unfortunately despite assembling a stellar ensemble, Bogdanovich’s  film is merely a faint echo rather than a sparkling homage to the great 1930s and 1940s ‘screwball comedies’ of Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges or Ernst Lubitsch and without even the quota of laughs found in Woody Allen or Brian Rix bedroom farces.

With a lot of famous faces on screen having a good time, a leaden script that has apparently been around for over a decade centring on some dodgy and sleazy narratives, the main interest is in a series of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them cameos and a famous scene from Ernst Lubitsch’s 1946 Cluny Brown.

Images courtesy of Lionsgate

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