Nattahnam

At the round earth’s imagin’d corners —or, at any rate, in four theaters throughout this eponymous borough— we can now see Woody Allen’s Manhattan. This is a bittersweet comedy about Isaac Davis (Woody Allen, in more ways than one), who gives up a lucrative job as a TV comedy writer to undertake a serious novel about life in Manhattan. His best friends are Yale, a Hunter College English prof grinding out a book on Eugene O’Neill, and Yale’s wife, Emily. Isaac has been twice divorced, latterly from Jill, who left him for her lesbian girlfriend, Connie. Jill got custody of their son (unlikely!) and, to make matters worse, is bringing out a book with intimate details about their marriage and divorce. Isaac’s girlfriend is Tracy, a forthright, unspoiled 17-year-old who, when others boast about their literary lives, answers the question, “And what do you do?” with a disarming “I go to high school.”

Isaac is a bit bothered by Tracy’s youth, even though she is loving, kind, and (literally) incredibly wise. So when the married Yale pushes Mary Wilke, a suddenly bothersome extracurricular flame, at him, Isaac, though initially repelled by the militantly cerebral ways of this snotty young woman of letters, ends up getting involved with her.

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John Simon

At the round earth’s imagin’d corners —or, at any rate, in four theaters throughout this eponymous borough— we can now see Woody Allen’s Manhattan. This is a bittersweet comedy about Isaac Davis (Woody Allen, in more ways than one), who gives up a lucrative job as a TV comedy writer to undertake a serious novel about life in Manhattan. His best friends are Yale, a Hunter College English prof grinding out a book on Eugene O’Neill, and Yale’s wife, Emily. Isaac has been twice divorced, latterly from Jill, who left him for her lesbian girlfriend, Connie. Jill got custody of their son (unlikely!) and, to make matters worse, is bringing out a book with intimate details about their marriage and divorce. Isaac’s girlfriend is Tracy, a forthright, unspoiled 17-year-old who, when others boast about their literary lives, answers the question, “And what do you do?” with a disarming “I go to high school.”

Isaac is a bit bothered by Tracy’s youth, even though she is loving, kind, and (literally) incredibly wise. So when the married Yale pushes Mary Wilke, a suddenly bothersome extracurricular flame, at him, Isaac, though initially repelled by the militantly cerebral ways of this snotty young woman of letters, ends up getting involved with her.