I’ve always loved Woody Allen. His take on life. His frenetic-ness to churn out movies so that he doesn’t have to face the fact that he – like everyone – will die one day.
Woody ALLEN © Sabrina Lantos Copyright : 2015 Gravier Productions, Inc.
And in his latest film Woody Allen does not disappoint. Irrational Man poses the question that so many of us trip up on in life.
You know when you do something wrong but for a ‘good’ reason. Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant…displaying the same kind of acting he displayed in Gladiator opposite Russell Crowe. Showing depth as a middle-aged professor who is drawn to a young muse but – at first – won’t allow himself to touch her and get involved in a romantic relationship.
He’s a philosophy teacher caught up in a major philosophical quandry.
And without giving too much away – he steps over the line. And Woody shows how once over the line, we can never retreat. We can never undo our wrongs. And each sentence, each thought… eventually trips us up and gets us caught in our web of deception.
By the end of the sad, sorry tale, his student – and muse – learns one of the most valuable lessons he was trying to teach her – that to truly know what is the right or wrong thing to do in life is to listen to that voice inside yourself. Because rules can always be twisted to suit our motives…and the rational man can rationalise the most irrational – but the little voice inside us, that ‘feeling’ when you know…that always tells the truth…