Everyone Says I Love You

Springtime in New York. Norton and Barrymore stroll hand in hand around a fountain, then burst into a deliciously sloppy rendition of 'Just You, Just Me', and immediately we're right into it, and you can't imagine why it's taken Woody Allen so long to get round to reviving the musical. Romantic, nostalgic and decadent as Fred Astaire, this might as well be an old movie, for all its relevance to the '90s or Allen's on-going problems. In some ways, it's not like a Woody Allen film at all. The plot - a frippery about the affairs of an extended upper-class family - transports us from Manhattan to Venice and Paris; there are black faces about the edges, a female, teenage narrator; even some fancy special effects work. Yet it never feels cynical or self-serving; indeed, it feels like the work of a younger, more open-hearted man. Unlike Mighty Aphrodite, in which Allen's on-screen character is apparently irresistible to Mira Sorvino, here his courtship of Roberts is accomplished only through underhand means, and the joke's ultimately on him. The musical standards are beautifully orchestrated, staged with wit and invention, and enthusiastically performed, particularly by Norton, Tim Roth and Hawn, three stand-outs in a charming, sweet-natured divertissement. Enjoy yourself (it's later than you think).