Gatsby (what a great character name and played by Timothee Chalamet) is a student at Yardley College in upstate New York. Its a compromise between him and his parents, as Gatsby's main interests are card games and piano bars. Happily, Gatsby has a beautiful girlfriend, Ashleigh (Elle Fanning) who is a journalism student and writer for the college paper. Its Ashleigh's good fortune to snag an interview with a famous movie director, Pollard (Liev Schrieber) but must travel to Manhattan to meet this man. As this is Gatsby's home city, he is excited to come along and show her his favorite sights and the bar where they play the music he loves. So, off they go. After arrival, the two part, agreeing to meet for lunch after the Pollard meeting. But, things go off kilter. The director is in despair over the film he has just finished and, enchanted by Ashleigh's pretty face and winning ways, he insists she screen it with him. This will take hours and Gatsby gets the call she will be later than she expects. Annoying! Thus, Gatsby goes to visit his brother, who if about to be married. Horrors, this sibling tells Gatsby he can't go through with it, due to his fiancees screeching laugh. Having no advice, Gatsby then visits the set of an indie film being shot by an old friend where he runs into Chan (Selena Gomez) the younger sis of an old Gatsby girlfriend. She has agreed to be in the movie where she is to receive a passionate kiss in a convertible! All too soon, Gatsby gets persuaded to be in the movie and bestow this lip clencher. Ho ho ho. Although they trade barbs and insults, the kiss has rattled them both. As Ashleigh is still busy, Chan and Gatsby go visit a museum as rain is pouring. Wait, what's going on? Tihs enchanting film has all of Woody Allen's fabulous ingredients. The cast is great, with Chalamet shining brightly; all of the others, Fanning, Schieber, Jude Law, Rebecca Hall and the rest, do fine work, too. The sets are wonderful and the costumes snazzy. Most of all, the script is full of humor, pathos, and charm while the direction never falters. Yes, as stated many times, I am Allen's biggest fan living in Toledo, Ohio, which is nowhere at all. But, this film is superlative, matchless, everlasting and magical.

Gatsby Welles (Timothée Chalamet) attends an upstate New York college but he's more interested in winning his poker games. He has distaste for his family's upper class world but not enough to refuse their money. He takes his girlfriend Ashleigh Enright (Elle Fanning) to New York City to interview filmmaker Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) for her college newspaper. They go their separate ways. She attracts the attention of Roland, Ted Davidoff (Jude Law),and movie star Francisco Vega (Diego Luna). Meanwhile, Gatsby encounters Chan Tyrell (Selena Gomez),the younger sister of a former flame. There is intermittent rain over their days in the city.

Woody Allen is doing the structure of a rom-com in his own way. The main thing is that I don't care much about Gatsby. It's not until his conversation with his mother that his character develops some depth. That's not to say that the conversation isn't awkwardly unreal. There are quite a few awkwardly unreal conversations. The first one starts with Ben Warheit. He's obviously a troll and I can see what Woody is doing. I just don't believe that Gatsby would helplessly stand in front of him to continue the conversation. Sure he got the Chan information but he should leave as soon as that's done. He's not doing it to be polite so the only reason is that Woody wants to do a funny. Now, Selena Gomez is probably too old to play that part. The point is that she is younger than Gatsby. She was a little girl the last time he dated her sister. Quite frankly, Elle Fanning may be better for that role and switching the two actresses would be useful. As for Elle, she is trying for some broader comedy. She's a very winning actress but the drunk acting may be too much to ask for. I laughed but I'm not sure if it's for her and at her. It's awkward to do that broad physical comedy when the older men are on the prowl. Overall, the characters grew on me and it's a minor later Woody for me.

"A Rainy Day in New York" is a new American movie from 2019 and the most recent filmmaking effort by writer and director Woody Allen, who is gonna turn 85 already next year. It runs for slightly over 90 minutes and that includes credits already, so not a too long film. And Woody Allen is still a really big name in the industry, so no surprise the cast includes many really famous actors. I don't want to make a list of the names as you can check these out for yourself, but let me say that Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning play the two central characters. Rebecca Hall I really like and she is always a welcome addition, even if she only has one scene like in this one here. She worked with Woody already in the Oscar-winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona where by the way she was as good as the actress who won the Oscar for that film in my opinion, maybe even better. Okay but now back to this one. Woody making films in which cities play quite a role is not an exception at all. And this is by far not his first tribute to New York. Think of Manhattan obviously or pretty recently also of the Coney-Island-set film starring Kate Winslet. Still I must say that this one here felt really much more about the characters than about New York and it could have played in other areas of the world too. It is basically set in the now. I wondered a bit about that honestly with mentions of legendary directors and the way they were mentioned felt a bit as if they were currently active still, but later on we find out about mobile phones being used and there is also a brief climate change reference in here. I mean not in the sense where it is in any way trying to make a political statement, but you know it is a film that takes place in the 21st century.

Okay now about the plot and characters: Chalamet is Gatsby and Fanning is Ashleigh. I thought for quite a while that Gatsby was just his nickname really because his lifestyle and general approach to life were similar to the famous literary character's but no it is his real name. I wonder what the parents were thinking naming him like that. Anyway, we have a young couple travelling to New York for a weekend because the girl is working on a journal article for her university and she gets a chance to interview a really renowned director. This turns out to be a massive challenge to and chance for her, so eventually she just won't find any way to spend quality time with her boyfriend whatsoever. And that results basically in both of them spending a lot of time with attractive people from the opposite gender. For Ashleigh, it is not just the director, but also his regular screen writer that she is a huge fan of and eventually a really popular Hispanic actor. For the boy, it is the younger sister of a former girlfriend and a lady he meets at a restaurant. Don't want to go particularly into detail what she does because then maybe she would not fit the description anymore. But she becomes his date when they go to a party organized by his mother. I must say all these meetings were fine, but the great attention to detail was not offered in the scenes that included them, so at some point for me it basically just turned into a guessing game who's gonna end up with whom. And Woody sure enjoyed toying with us here because first it seemed as if Ashleigh could start something with the director (Schreiber),then that Gatsby could start something with Gomez' character and that Ash stays faithful, then that Ash starts something with Law's character and so on. Eventually, she is really ready to have sex with Luna's character and it would have happened if his wife had not interrupted that very moment, so it puts Ashleigh not really into the best light, also not when she says to Gatsby near the end that the actor only wanted her body and that she is happy to be with her boyfriend again, the one who she basically not only neglected all weekend, but she even denied him pretty much when being asked if she has a boyfriend, so certainly not a likable character, even if that is not too easy to say for me because I think Elle is really one of the most adorable actresses on the planet and I am sure she will have a great career for decades to come. I still must say hiccups on her I expected to be the cutest thing ever which they were not and maybe with an actress I like less I would have hated that little inclusion, even if it really only a minor addition.

Now "rain" actually plays a crucial role in this film somewhat. There is a lot of talk about it how Chalamet's character finds it romantic, but Fanning's not at all. This is basically the key explanation why they do not really fit together. At the end, it becomes obvious too when the last words by Ashleigh in the carriage are basically an instruction to the driver to hurry up because it rains and at the same time Gatsby enjoys his time in the rain and he meets the girl he really wants there because she feels the same like him, about rain and about mutual attraction you can say. The photo here on imdb is really a bit of a spoiler, but admittedly you really could have guessed with the first (no third) kiss between these two. And how it starts raining this very moment. Or how they through coincidence meet again in the rain in the taxi and they go on the "vehicle trip" that Gatsby wanted to go on with his girlfriend initially. On the one hand, I am a bit surprised that Woody really cast Selena Gomez for such a crucial part, but then again nothing should really surprise me when it comes to Woody. He does what he wants and not what the media tell him and obviously he himself is controversial enough as a character that he should not really give any credibility to people saying Gomez may not be good enough an actress for the part. And I thought she was good enough anyway. As for Woody, many people still refuse to watch his films because of his romantic affairs, but I think that is not any of my business and I won't strip myself of a quality watch because of that, especially because I have a permanent ticket anyway, so I did not pay any money specifically for this showing, i.e. into the filmmaker's pocket. These criticisms are like the ones about Polanski, another very old and successful filmmaker, although maybe slightly less serious for Woody. But I don't want to write a lot about that here and return to the film instead. How much I consider it worth watching is already described in the title of my review. I don't think it is as bad as many say, but also not a truly great achievement. People who like Chalamet (and Fanning) should watch it as basically one of them is always seen and it is a bit split between these two as they don't share too many scenes like Allen already did it in another recent film with Stewart and Eisenberg. But this one here also has many nice moments and examples of smart writing. I liked the beginning with the song. And how we are thrown right into the action, which is not too surprising though because like I said it is not a long movie. As always, Woody will definitely get a smile on your lips here and there. I will mention some moments when he did with me. For example, that was when near the end all the guys want to get away with Ashleigh and leave everything behind and act as if it was true love, well except her boyfriend, who was crazy in love early on, so I struggled a bit with believing he fell out of it so quickly, even if admittedly seeing your girlfriend enter a famous actor's car makes something with you. But I want to talk about the positive really now. These final moments of Schreiber's and Law's characters were funny. Also funny was how he keeps beating everybody at poker and makes tons of money this way and well I will leave it at that, you will recognize these little funny moments when you see them like what's the secret thing Schreiber's character wants to tell her and she thinks it is something else at first. Simple Woody, you know what I mean. Nonetheless, there were also many moments that were intended as funny, but did not work out so well, like him trying to hide away from his extended family at the museum. Or the scene I mentioned earlier when one character's (still) partner shows up and destroys a scene in which a couple is getting busy. Also for the non-funny moments there are further examples that you will find yourself. One more dramatic scene that did really nothing for me sadly was the one near the end when we have Gatsby's mother confess to him about her professional background back in the day. I mean this really made something with Gatsby as we find out at the very end, but this monologue by the mother did absolutely nothing for me and it reminded me of Chalamet's most famous film, in which his dad makes a confession to him at the end and that scene is so right, so heartfelt, so honest and this scene we have here is really nothing of that. This parallel was really disappointing for me. But yeah, overall I still believe the good is more frequent in this film than the weak and unless you start watching it with expectations that it could be a masterpiece, you shouldn't be disappointed. I give it a thumbs-up and nice to see Woody still come up with movies like this at his really old age now.