Movie: Radio Days (Woody Allen, 1987)
Woody Allen has an instantly recognisable and warmly pleasant voice. I think that's an underdiscussed element of what makes his films so popular. His dialogue is great, but it's also often knowingly smarter-than-thou, causing many Allen critics to describe his characters and films as smug, self-absorbed, and egotistical. To some extent they are intended to come off that way, but to the extent that they are not, Allen manages to smooth that over by his homely delivery, giving the impression that even his most callous utterances are not really intended as insults, but as friendly invitations to marvel in unison at the world's absurdity. Of course then, it makes perfect sense for Allen to narrate, without appearing on screen, a film about the golden days of radio. Allen essentially serves as the presenter of a 1,5 hour radio special featuring funny annecdotes, musical performances, gossip, tall-tales that are too good to be true, historical and personal drama, and romantic interludes aimed at lonely spinsters seeking to get swept away by stories of tragic romance that are just uncouth and sad enough to make you feel something, without quite making you uncomfortable - I have mentioned here before that I like the idea that art should be enjoyed by the people it depicts. In that sense Dianne Wiest's subplot is the best in the film as Wiest perfectly plays exactly the kind of character who'd spent hours telling her friends about the latest installment in her favorite show about the misbegotten romantic adventures of Aunt Bea.
The rest of the movie is quite good too. It's essentially a nostalgic recollection of various radio-related episodes from the narrator's (named Joe) youth, switching around his family and the radio stars they listen to. It's often sweetly funny, and driven by one of Allen's favorite ideas: we can't ever really plan anything, and most of the major events in our lives rely on chance and whimsy. All of this is told through deftly set up scenes with punchlines that both come as a surprise and make perfect emotional and narrative sense within the context of the story. Radio Days doesn't waste any time and its opening scene is one of the funniest in Allen's career. It's also one of the few scenes here that finds Allen at his very best. The flipside to his homely friendly appearance is that there is a genuinely acerbic side to him that engages in mischievous irony, irreverently absurd humor and situations that (almost) make you root for the less moral or ethical outcome. Another great example of that is the scene where Joe's mom and dad fight with his rabbi teacher about who has the authority to spank Joe, leading to the poor kid (played by Seth Green) being moved around like a boxing bag among the three of them.
Most of the film though is just a tad too sentimental. Joe's family members have their quirks, but they are presented as generally nice people caught up in the world's whirlwinds, which they mostly accept with a weary resignation. And Allen's writing and direction is almost constantly patting them on the back for it. However, the film never becomes condescending and its quaintness does fit the tone and style of the radio programmes it cherishes, It's why I think it could have been rewarding if the film did a little more, aside from Allen only appearing as an off-screen narrator, to cinematically evoke how it feels to listen to the radio. Allen's disinterest in doing so takes the power away from his key scene centered around a live radio report on the efforts to save a girl who fell in a well. Allen works really hard here to showcase the importance of radio, cutting across families from different social classes as they listen intensely to the commentary on the rescue mission, showing how radio can be a uniting factor. However, he also keeps showing the rescuers' efforts on site, nullifying the importance of the radio report, and taking the audience out of the shoes of the radio listeners.
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