A bored travel journalist (Kenneth Branagh) leaves his wife (Judy Davis) and his line of work to pursue celebrity interviews and a life of hedonism while stepping all over the beautiful new women in his life. Meanwhile, she meets a too good to be ture TV executive (Joe Mantegna), producer of daytime schlock, and finds herself reborn, also as an assessor of the rich and famous. With sleek black and white cinematography by Sven Nykvist and a pretentious story on the vapidness of stardom, Woody Allen again enters Fellini territory which doesn't really mesh with his standard fare, though there are many fine moments and the movie is perfectly watchable. Branagh does his best Woody impersonation and Davis, an Allen regular, finds her best role in one of his pictures. Many stars appear with Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, and Donald Trump being the most memorable.
** 1/2 out of ****
