Manhattan (1979)

Woody Allen plays a 42-year-old TV writer who is dating a 17-year-old girl (Mariel Hemingway). But when he meets his best friend’s mistress (Diane Keaton), he falls for her. 

It’s shot in black and white, so the shots of New York (often at night) look stunning – elegant vistas of architecture and light. These scenes are given an additional stately grandeur by the music of George Gershwin. 

There are funny lines, as you’d expect, and the usual, masterfully handled tangle of interconnected relationships. Given the various allegations about Woody Allen’s private life, the age-difference narrative stands out as being awkward. It appears that he’s deliberately playing with taboo. And to his credit, he certainly doesn’t write a very nice character for himself. 

All of the acting is remarkable. Meryl Streep is excellent as one of Allen’s two ex-wives. Keaton is funny as a self-conscious intellectual. And Hemingway is quietly magnetic as the emotional centre of the film – the one character you really care about and who seems motivated by love rather than personal gain.

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