Film Review: RIFKIN’S FESTIVAL (2020): Wallace Shawn Stars in Woody Allen’s Smart but Rather Slight Comedy

Rifkin’s Festival Review

Rifkin’s Festival (2020) Film Review, a movie directed by Woody Allen and starring Wallace Shawn, Gina Gershon, Elena Anaya, Steve Guttenberg, Tammy Blanchard, Sergi Lopez, Christoph Waltz, Andrea Trepat, Michael Garvey, Louis Garrel, Luz Cipriota, Richard Kind and Nathalie Poza.

Woody Allen used to come out with a film every year and a star-studded cast was always a given with his pictures. In his latest, Rifkin’s Festival, the cast assembled isn’t as star-studded as usual (for obvious reasons) although there are talented performers in the movie nevertheless. I don’t think the cast is the real problem of Rifkin’s Festival although with more high-profile actors in the movie, it may have gotten some more publicity. A central demerit for the new movie comes through the fact that Allen is on very familiar ground here. If you’ve seen any of Allen’s previous comedy films, you’ve pretty much seen this one before. With that being said, it’s nice to see Wallace Shawn in a lead role (as the stand-in for Allen) and Gina Gershon is a talent we see way too little of in the movies. So, in that respect, Rifkin’s Festival may be a curiosity piece for their fans.

As the movie opens, we meet a married American couple who are attending the San Sebastian Film Festival. Wallace Shawn is Mort Rifkin, a film teacher/would-be novelist, and Gershon is his wife, Sue, who is a publicity agent. There is a young, handsome director named Philippe (Louis Garrel) who Sue is representing at the festival as well. This will lead to some plot complications as it becomes easy to suspect that Sue has taken a liking to Philippe. But, Mort is no saint either. When given the opportunity to pursue a female doctor he encounters, Mort is more than up to the task of being unusually pushy in trying to secure a date with her. The female doctor, Jo Rojas, is played to perfection by the film’s greatest asset: Elena Anaya whose role is the most relatable character in the film. It turns out that Dr. Rojas is from New York just like Mort and they form a bond based on similar interests that develops as the movie’s story unfolds.

A hysterical early joke has a reporter asking a filmmaker if all the orgasms in a movie were special effects. It’s funny observations like that which make Allen’s film more watchable than it has any right to be. Allen still has his comic edge even if the themes he works with in this new picture have been done and redone (mostly by Allen, himself) before.

A lot of time is spent focused on the fact that Mort’s brother (Steve Guttenberg) took the original love of Mort’s life, Doris (Tammy Blanchard) away and we also get glimpses into Mort’s marriage with Sue which is predictably on shaky ground per the typical Woody Allen fashion. When the new movie keeps attention on Mort and Rojas, the movie is magic but everything else around that relationship is rather slight and lacks creative depth.

Of course, being a film centered around a film event, Rifkin’s Festival offers some glimpses into the way the movies transcend the viewer. It pays homage to pictures like Citizen Kane and, in one sequence, the old black and white version of Breathless is shown. This new film also incorporates Mort’s imagination into black and white scenes as well that detail his past and his fantasies for the present and future. While the use of color and black and white is only marginally successful, it’s an interesting device which Allen uses to tell his tale here.

As previously stated, it is when the movie focuses on Mort and Dr. Rojas that it succeeds the most even if their relationship isn’t fully plausible. These two actors play off each other extremely well here as Mort tries to help Rojas overcome feelings that she is in a troubled marriage with a man who she isn’t too much in love with, Paco (Sergi Lopez). Wallace Shawn, as always, projects a strong sense of character and depth to his role and Elena Anaya is perfectly cast in her part as the woman who draws Mort in and makes him question what he is looking for in his life. Gina Gershon very ably plays Mort’s wife and makes us understand why Mort strays through her characterization.

As Death, himself, Christoph Waltz makes an appearance as well. Waltz is appropriately humorous in his role even though he mostly plays it straight. Mort asks Death what makes life worth sustaining and also questions when he, himself, is going to die. It’s a good, solid scene between Shawn and Waltz though it feels very familiar as most of Rifkin’s Festival does.

Despite its pluses, Woody Allen’s new film is not a true success for the reasons previously stated. I was one who found his previous film, A Rainy Day in New York, to be fun and worth seeing–even for non-Allen fans. However, Rifkin’s Festival is clearly designed specifically for Allen’s fans and will have a hard time appealing to those who aren’t familiar with his previous work.

Rating: 6/10

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