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''Hollywood Ending'' is a 2002 American
comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...
written and directed by
Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
, who also plays the
principal character A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
. It tells the story of a once-famous
film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...
who suffers
hysterical blindness Conversion disorder (CD), or functional neurologic symptom disorder, is a diagnostic category used in some psychiatric classification systems. It is sometimes applied to patients who present with neurological symptoms, such as numbness, blindness ...
due to the intense pressure of directing.


Plot

Val Waxman is a once-prestigious film director who now directs television commercials. When he is thrown off his latest effort (a deodorant commercial filmed in the frozen north of Canada), he desperately seeks a real movie project. Out of the blue, Val receives an offer to direct a big-budget blockbuster to be set in New York City. However, the offer comes from his former wife, Ellie, and her boyfriend, Hal, the studio head who stole her from Val years ago. Pushed by his agent Al Hack, Val reluctantly agrees to the project, but a psychosomatic ailment strikes him blind just before production is to begin. With Al's encouragement and aid, Val keeps his blindness a secret from the cast and crew (and Hal). During filming, Val rekindles his relationship with Ellie and reconnects with his estranged son, Tony, while his much younger girlfriend, Lori, leaves him. When Val regains what had been missing his life, he regains his sight as well, and realizes that the movie he directed while blind is a disaster. Sure enough, the movie flops - but is a hit in France, where he is invited to direct a film. After winning Ellie back, he happily proclaims, "Thank God the French exist."


Cast


Production notes

Haskell Wexler Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the Inte ...
was the original cinematographer, but was fired by Woody Allen after a week of filming as they couldn't agree on how to film certain shots. Wedigo von Schultzendorff replaced Wexler.


Soundtrack

*Going Hollywood (1933) - Music by
Nacio Herb Brown Ignacio Herbert "Nacio Herb" Brown (February 22, 1896 – September 28, 1964) was an American writer of popular songs, movie scores and Broadway theatre music in the 1920s through the early 1950s. Amongst his most enduring work is the scor ...
- Lyrics by
Arthur Freed Arthur Freed (September 9, 1894 – April 12, 1973) was an American lyricist and Hollywood film producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture twice, in 1951 for '' An American in Paris'' and in 1958 for '' Gigi''. Both films were musicals. ...
- Performed by
Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...
*It's Been So Long (1935) - Music by
Walter Donaldson Walter Donaldson (February 15, 1893 – July 15, 1947) was an American prolific popular songwriter and publishing company founder, composing many hit songs of the 1910s to 1940s, that have become standards and form part of the Great American Song ...
- Lyrics by
Harold Adamson Harold Campbell Adamson (December 10, 1906 – August 17, 1980) was an American lyricist during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life Adamson, the son of building contractor Harold Adamson and Marion "Minnie" Campbell Adamson, was born and raised in ...
- Performed by Edmond Hall *Hooray for Hollywood (1937) - Music by Richard A. Whiting - Lyrics by
Johnny Mercer John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallic ...
- Performed by
Dick Powell Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American actor, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into ...
,
Frances Langford Julia Frances Newbern-Langford (April 4, 1913 – July 11, 2005) was an American singer and actress who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and made film and television appearances for over two decades. She was known as the "GI Nightinga ...
, Johnnie Davis,
Gene Krupa Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973), known as Gene Krupa, was an American jazz drummer, bandleader and composer who performed with energy and showmanship. His drum solo on Benny Goodman's 1937 recording of " Sing, Sing, ...
&
Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His conc ...
*Descarga (1955) - Written by
Chico O'Farrill Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill (October 28, 1921 – June 27, 2001) was a Cuban composer, arranger, and conductor, best known for his work in the Latin idiom, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz or "Cubop", although he also composed traditional jazz pieces a ...
- Performed by
Tito Puente Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. (April 20, 1923 – June 1, 2000), commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer of Puerto Rican descent. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz ...
*Sweet And Lovely (1931) - Written by
Gus Arnheim Gus Arnheim (September 4, 1897 – January 19, 1955) was an American pianist and an early popular band leader. He is noted for writing several songs with his first hit being "I Cried for You" from 1923. He was most popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He ...
,
Neil Moret Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. ...
&
Harry Tobias Harry Tobias (September 11, 1895 – December 15, 1994) was an American lyricist. Like his younger brother Charles, he is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Born in New York City, United States, but raised in Worcester, Massachuse ...
- Performed by Barbara Carroll *Too Close For Comfort (1956) - Written by
Jerry Bock Jerrold Lewis Bock (November 23, 1928November 3, 2010) was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical ''Fiorello!'' and the To ...
,
Lawrence Holofcener Lawrence Holofcener (February 23, 1926 – March 4, 2017) was an American-British sculptor, poet, lyricist, playwright, novelist, actor and director. He held British and American dual citizenship. Early life Holofcener was born in Baltimore, Ma ...
&
George David Weiss George David Weiss (April 9, 1921 – August 23, 2010) was an American songwriter and arranger, who was a president of the Songwriters Guild of America. He is an inductee in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Biography Weiss was born in a Jewish fa ...
- Performed by
Jackie Gleason John Herbert Gleason (February 26, 1916June 24, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer, and conductor known affectionately as "The Great One." Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was know ...
*Poor Butterfly (1916) - Written by
Raymond Hubbell John Raymond Hubbell (June 1, 1879 – December 13, 1954) was an American writer, composer and lyricist. He is best known for the popular song, " Poor Butterfly". Life and career Hubbell was born in Urbana, Ohio. He attended schools in Urba ...
&
John Golden John Lionel Golden (June 27, 1874 – June 17, 1955) was an American actor, songwriter, author, and theatrical producer. As a songwriter, he is best-known as lyricist for " Poor Butterfly" (1916). He produced many Broadway shows and four films. ...
- Performed by
Bobby Hackett Robert Leo Hackett (January 31, 1915 – June 7, 1976) was an American jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet, and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Hackett was a featured soloist o ...
& His Orchestra *Serenade in Blue (1942) - Music by
Harry Warren Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna; December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981) was an American composer and the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song ...
- Lyrics by Mack Gordon - Performed by Jackie Gleason * No Moon at All (1947) - Written by David Mann &
Redd Evans Redd is a Turkish rock band established in 1996 by tenor opera singer Doğan Duru and guitarist Berke Hatipoğlu under the name ''Ten''. They used to play at bars until they set up their own studio in 2004. Their first album, titled ''"50/50" ...
- Performed by Barbara Carroll *Grindhouse (1989) - Written by Ivan De Prume,
Sean Yseult Sean, also spelled Seán or Séan in Irish English, is a male given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish versions of the Biblical Hebrew name ''Yohanan'' (), Seán (anglicized as ''Shaun/ Shawn/ Shon'') and Séan (Ulster variant; anglici ...
,
Jay Yuenger Jay Noel Yuenger (born December 26, 1966), also known by the stage name "J.", is a rock guitarist best known for his work with Grammy-nominated heavy metal band White Zombie. Music career As a teenager, Yuenger's interests quickly progressed ...
&
Rob Zombie Rob Zombie (born Robert Bartleh Cummings; January 12, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker, and voice actor. His music and lyrics are notable for their horror and sci-fi themes, and his live shows have be ...
- Performed by White Zombie


Box office

Ticket sales in the United States reach just under $5 million and a worldwide gross of $14.8 million. It was screened out of competition at the
2002 Cannes Film Festival The 55th Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May 2002. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film '' The Pianist'' directed by Roman Polanski. The festival opened with '' Hollywood Ending'', direct ...
. In the United Kingdom, it was the first of Allen's films not to receive a theatrical release.


Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
reported that the film received 46% positive reviews, based on 134 reviews, with an average rating of 5.42/10. The website's critics consensus states: "Although ''Hollywood Ending'' contains some zany one-liners, its promising premise is far from developed."
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
reported the film had an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. Film critic Bryant Frazer thought that it suffered from poor editing. He wrote, "What's most frustrating is the sense that ''Hollywood Ending'' could have been quite a bit better than it actually is. At 114 minutes, it's decisively lacking in the brevity that used to characterize Allen's pictures—even the super-serious, Bergman-inspired stuff. Worse, his timing seems to be off—the filmmaker who was once notorious for cutting his films to the absolute bone now gives us rambling, overlong shots featuring performers who almost seem to be ad libbing their dialogue. I ran to the
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
to investigate, and discovered what may be the problem— Susan Morse is gone. Morse, the editor who had worked with Allen since ''
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
'' in 1979 and who turned into a real soldier by the time of the jazzy montage that characterized ''
Deconstructing Harry ''Deconstructing Harry'' is a 1997 American black comedy film written, directed by, and co-starring Woody Allen, alongside Caroline Aaron, Kirstie Alley, Bob Balaban, Richard Benjamin, Eric Bogosian, Billy Crystal, Judy Davis and others. The f ...
'', was reportedly a victim of budget-cutting within the ranks." In 2016, film critics
Robbie Collin Robbie Collin is a British film critic. Collin studied aesthetics and the philosophy of film at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He edited the university's student newspaper, '' The Saint''. Collin has been the chief film critic at ''The D ...
and Tim Robey ranked ''Hollywood Ending'' as the worst movie by Woody Allen.


References


External links

* * * * * * {{Authority control 2000s screwball comedy films 2002 films American screwball comedy films DreamWorks Pictures films Films scored by David Arnold Films about film directors and producers Films about filmmaking Films directed by Woody Allen Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City Films with screenplays by Woody Allen The Kennedy/Marshall Company films 2002 comedy films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films Films about disability