Allen's loyal fans would no doubt take refuge behind the adage that you should write about what you know, but the more one is exposed to the creative barrenness of the repeated masturbatory exercises since his golden period in the '70s, the more one has to question the validity of the maxim.
Celebrity is a particularly feeble example since Allen will always put himself centre stage, even more so when he's not in the film himself, and not only one but both of the main characters here, a divorced couple going through a succession of rough patches following their separation, are the screen Allen: stuttering, neurotic, cowardly and yet somehow able to pull above their station. The Kenneth Branagh one is even a frustrated writer and the mind boggles at what briefing the director will have given him as he produces a duplicate of the screen Allen down to every verbal tic and weaselly evasion.
As always, there are enough throwaway one-liners to keep things pleasant, but to what purpose when the film purports to be about the vacuity of celebrity and then proceeds to feed off cramming in as many recognisable faces as possible, a blatant smokescreen for having nothing new to say? The film proves he was already a spent force in 1998, and all the yearly reiterations since then have hardly proved otherwise.
4/10
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