Everyone Says I Love You (R, 1996)

EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU is Woody Allen's homage to musical comedies of the fifties and sixties complete with song and dance numbers and familiar plotlines. The movie centers around a wealthy extended family, the Berlin/Dandridges, replete with exes, half-siblings, and significant others. Plucky D.J. (Natasha Lyonne) narrates, recounting stories of her woebegone father Joe (Woody Allen), who is looking for his dream girl in the midst of a nasty breakup and her sister Skylar (Drew Barrymore), a romantic woman who is torn between her sweet lawyer fiance (Edward Norton) and a charming ex-convict (Tim Roth). D.J. is fickle, keeping her romances as light and pretty as the movie itself. Other members of the family support the film's theme of romance, from the solid and graceful marriage between D.J.'s mother and stepfather to the first loves and heartbreaks of D.J.'s teenage sisters.

This is a lovely movie, albeit a little silly. The family's over-the-top antics make the musical numbers in a sense more realistic. In keeping with Allen's obsession with the musical past, classics love songs from the twenties and thirties are present throughout the film - the most familiar one being "I'm Through with Love," made famous by Marilyn Monroe's rendition of it in Some Like It Hot.

Both the lead and supporting cast (featuring Julia Roberts, Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda and a very young Natalie Portman) do a game job of singing and dancing on their own. Typical Woody Allen's dialogue sparkles between musical numbers, and the acting is top notch.

Studio: Miramax
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Alan Alda, Julia Roberts, Woody Allen
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 101 minutes
Theatrical release: December 6, 1996
DVD release: August 17, 1999
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA explanation: one use of strong language