A Rainy Day in New York

The college couple Gatsby (Timothée Chalamet) and Ashleigh (Elle Fanning) seem to be characterized by opposites: Gatsby sees himself as a distinguished gentleman of the old school; Ashleigh, on the other hand, is a career-oriented, naively cheerful “millennial” who smells the big time in an interview with the famous director Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) for the college magazine. How fitting that the interview should take place in Manhattan, New York, of all places - Gatsby's home town, where his wealthy parents are planning their annual reception. However, the young man is in no mood for that. Instead of a romantic weekend in a luxurious hotel room, the couple begin to wander around the Big Apple separately, connected only by brief cell phone calls. While Ashleigh immerses herself in the seductive creative scene in order to rescue the director from his deep creative crisis, Gatsby has to cancel one program item after another. He runs into the arms of annoying relatives and becomes disillusioned with a beautifully filmed but seemingly frozen New York instead of revitalizing it for himself and Ashleigh. And then Gatsby meets Shannon (Selena Gomez), the smart, sharp-tongued sister of a high school ex-girlfriend who is helping out on a movie shoot. And suddenly a movie kiss is much more than a movie kiss.And the heavens open the floodgates and won't close them again... A little neurotic, a little nervous, but always sophisticated and cognitively in the fast lane: Gatsby is another alter ego version of (screenwriter) Woody Allen.With this weightless, rainy comedy, he has by no means delivered the whimsical, romantic declaration of love to New York that one would have expected from the then 84-year-old director.Rather, the city and the film seem to be completely occupied by self-promoters from the film industry, who all act like cliché figures of themselves, while the young journalist hiccups when sexually aroused and acts as the epitome of the easily impressed blonde. What fortunately cushions the portrayal of Ashleigh as a naively cheerful blonde are the no less one-dimensionally drawn male characters, whom Woody Allen lets “run riot” as caricatures of themselves in both senses of the word: the established gentlemen vainly bask in Ashleigh's admiration, but can hardly conceal the hollowness of their desire for a much younger woman. Allen also tells the sad story of a thoroughly gentrified city in which people have to get by because capitalism has long since defeated art. The Eldorado of creatives, writers and film artists is a thing of the past. It almost seems to be a melancholy swan song to his great love, New York, which the now 84-year-old director intones, as people are so much more concerned with themselves than with their art or their partners. It is not only the other person who is betrayed here, but also the love of art. Both seem to have lost their innocence - the city and its director. Note: The repeated allegations of abuse made by Dylan Farrow against her stepfather Woody Allen in 2018 also received more attention due to the important involvement of the #MeToo movement. The US distributor Amazon Studios then decided to shelve the film for the time being, where it was sued out again by Woody Allen.