A lot of fun.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ed Norton, Barrymore, Roberts, Hawn, Alda, Portman... what's not to love? Well the boring, plodding, banal and mind numbingly worked story line that is as intricate as a cereal box. How can anyone like this? Did they get awards because of the cast? This proves to me that pretentious nits make a good market for an inane movie a college student could have composed. It reminds me of those self-indulgent "I am melancholy pay attention to my deep thoughts" of the 70s genre, which is how old you have to be to find this mildly entertaining. Woody Allen should just give it up. Then again, people will pretend he has talent because they are suppose to. Kind of like people paid a zillion dollars a ticket to see washed up Streisand in concert.

There came a point when the trademark opening to Woody Allen movies - plain white text on black backgrounds accompanied by a jazz song - went from classy and charming to twee and self conscious. That point really seemed to hit home around his lacklustre 90s period, largely due to the indifferent quality of most of the product. If your jazz opening is ironic juxtaposition to a genuinely funny film, or a more museful one, then it works. If it presages a mediocre offering with Larry David then it can look a little self congratulatory and pretentious.That feeling extends throughout the whole of Everyone Says I Love You, a film that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be... a genuine musical homage or pastiche. If seeing hospital patients or the ghosts of the dead dancing to show tunes is your thing, then it's ideal. But this kind of humour would work more in the full-on hands of a Mel Brooks, not a nebbish pseudo intellectual. And I say that as a fan of Woody.One thing that surprises is how almost everyone can hold a reasonable note in the cast, even Woody himself, with Hawn and Norton reputedly told to sing worse to make it more realistic. And technically there's no faulting the skill behind this piece, Allen's first picture in over ten years to be shot outside New York. But there's a twee, self-amused feel throughout, something made even worse by the character Allen plays in the film. I'm a huge Woody Allen fan, but I would never claim he has a great number of strings to his acting bow. Here he plays Woody Allen - this time called "Joe Berlin" - as a man who psychologically manipulates Julia Roberts into bed with him. Using spied knowledge of her intimate psychological secrets, Allen says and does the right thing at all time to procure a physical relationship... sorry, but isn't that practically rape?This unsettling subtext to the movie unbalances it still further, a dispiriting turn of events in a film that never seems to know quite what it wants to be. It's nice to see Woody trying something new thirty years into his movie career, but Everyone Says I Love You really needs to be filed under "inessential Allen".

but I'm here to complain. I find the film embarrassing. Its slipshod dramaturgy (not foreign to Allen) makes "Meet Me in St. Louis" look like Shakespeare. The voice-over babbles on and on so as to make you think that Woody Allen ought to have written a novel instead.The film as such seems like a sorry excuse for the musical numbers which are few and far between. And then, as often with Allen, I feel like having to listen to a guy who goes on and on about his affairs with beautiful women and what a great lover he is. This time he's taking Julia Roberts and Goldie Hawn hostages. I wish I could believe that it's all tongue-in-cheek, but I can't. I give it two stars for the music only.

As an incredible affinity with nostalgic populism has been a recurring theme throughout his expansive career, the melding of a 1930s inspired musical and Woody Allen does not seem to be as unorthodox an idea as one might expect. However, in typical form, Allen proves far more interested in pursuing his own whimsical train of thought and interest than pursuing a topic along conventional expectations, opting for a 'musical' more reflexive about the role of the musical as a genre than concentrating on itself as a new entry into the genre. The result, Everyone Says I Love You, subsequently proves to be one of Allen's most silly, experimental, self-indulgent, and yet delightfully enjoyable films.While initial inspection would find criticism in the lacklustre singing and dancing efforts of his primary cast, it becomes clear over time than Allen's film attempts to harness the inspirational impact of the musical and the role it plays within the lives of the general public, particularly as a tool for inner expression. Through intentionally casting 'non-singers' (rumour has it than Allen neglected to inform any of the cast the film was a musical until after they were cast), the film achieves a naturalistic feel, as if providing real people with the sudden opportunity for cathartic song and dance in a way excluded from 'real life', thus exposing them and their inner workings as characters. And it is this methodology that brings the film to life, providing a unique spin on an otherwise familiar Allen narrative of a web of quirky yet credible individuals weaving in and out of each other's lives and relationships, suggesting the fluidity of romance and human nature. However, as always, Allen is less interested in ascribing judgement on his characters as simply observing them in action (although there is an amusingly tongue-in-cheek subplot satirizing the film's young republican character which unwinds in a hilariously contentious fashion). Everyone Says I Love You ends up exploring the inevitability of the contradictions and lapses in judgement of human nature, leaving each new weave of the plot largely bereft of directorial moral guiding and all the more human because of it. Though the title may suggest a comment on the devaluing of emotional excesses regarding love, Allen's film never trivializes or languishes on love, but merely presents it as a universal human concern, his fluffy approach belying a more credibly sweet interior (the film's ending riverside dance sequence stands out as one of the more quiet, poignant and beautiful climaxes in recent cinema). That said, the film at heart remains more of an experimental exploration than firmly quality film, as Allen's script lacks the zing and wit of many of his more assured works, lagging somewhat midway through, and the entire film has a highly cobbled together, incohesive and somewhat amateurish feel (whether or not this fits with Allen's intent at naturalism remains up for debate). In addition, Allen sometimes gets a little too silly for his own good (a song and dance number with ghosts in a funeral home is really pushing it), though he never quite gets carried away enough to lose track of his intent or film as a singular entity.Regardless of what they may lack in vocal credentials, the film's cast certainly excels in terms of performance. Drew Barrymore masters the sweetness, innocence yet unpredictability of a somewhat naïve young woman in love, and Edward Norton is a scream as her thoroughly wholesome yet vaguely self-centred fiancé (their prospective engagement scene in a restaurant, with Norton essaying his best neurotic Allen impression in the midst of growing chaos, is likely the film's most hilarious moment). Allen himself finds an entirely appropriate role for himself without taking over the narrative, toning down his eccentricities for the role of a man attempting to reconstruct his entire life in the image of his prospective lover's ideals, and is fully convincing and lovably pathetic in the process. As said romantic interest, Julia Roberts is left with little material to work with, but channels a fitting sense of grounded yearning nonetheless. Alan Alda is hilarious as the central family's sweetly outspoken patriarch, threatening to steal the show on multiple occasions, Goldie Hawn is somewhat underused yet both witty and touching as his wife (and Allen's ex-wife). Tim Roth steals the show with a far too brief part as an unbalanced, recently released convict, and a young Natalie Portman excels at credibly conveying teenage yearning for love without lapsing into cliché. While an undeniably whimsical entry into the Allen canon, Everyone Says I Love You remains a thought-provoking and thoroughly charming (albeit somewhat clumsy) film easily worth experiencing for those beguiled by musicals as much as musical lovers.-8/10