Everyone Says I Love You | |
---|---|
Directed by | Woody Allen |
Written by | Woody Allen |
Produced by | Robert Greenhut |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Carlo Di Palma |
Edited by | Susan E. Morse |
Music by | Dick Hyman |
Distributed by | Miramax Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $20 million[2] |
Box office | $9.8 million[2] |
Everyone Says I Love You is a 1996 American musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Alan Alda, Allen, Drew Barrymore, Lukas Haas, Goldie Hawn, Gaby Hoffmann, Natasha Lyonne, Edward Norton, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth, and David Ogden Stiers. Set in New York City, Venice, and Paris, it features singing by actors not usually known for musical roles. The film was a commercial failure, but is among the more critically successful of Allen's films, with Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert even ranking it as one of Allen's best.[3]
The emotions of an extended upper-class family in Manhattan are followed in song in New York City, Paris, and Venice. Many characters act, interact, and sing in each city. They include young lovers Holden and Skylar, Skylar's parents, Bob and Steffi, Steffi's ex-husband, Joe, Steffi and Joe's daughter, Djuna "DJ", a lady Joe meets named Von, and a recently released prison inmate, Charles Ferry.
The film uses classic songs for each scene, in some cases with unexpected dance routines.
Most of the performers sing in their own voices, with two exceptions: Goldie Hawn, who was told by Allen to intentionally sing worse because she sang too well to be believable as a normal person just breaking into song, and Drew Barrymore, who convinced Allen that her singing was too awful even for the "realistic singing voice" concept he was going for. Her voice was dubbed by Olivia Hayman.
The title song was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and was used as a recurring theme song in the Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers (1932). Allen is a well-known Groucho Marx fan. Marx's theme song from Animal Crackers (1930) "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" is featured, sung in French by a chorus of Groucho Marxes. The songs, film score, and subsequent album were recorded, mixed, and co-produced by Dick Hyman and Roy Yokelson.
On its opening weekend, the film grossed $131,678 from three theaters, with an average of $43,892 per theater.[5] It ended with its run with $9.8 million.[2]
The film was well received. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A likable, infectious musical, Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You is sometimes uneven but always toe-tapping and fun."[6] Janet Maslin wrote a strongly positive review in The New York Times, describing the film as "a delightful and witty compendium of [Allen's] favorite things."[7] Among the film's strongest detractors was Jonathan Rosenbaum, who described it as "creepy" and claimed, "this characterless world of Manhattan-Venice-Paris, where love consists only of self-validation, and political convictions of any kind are attributable to either hypocrisy or a brain condition, the me-first nihilism of Allen's frightened worldview is finally given full exposure, and it's a grisly thing to behold."[8]
The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 54th Golden Globe Awards.