Everyone Says I Love You

[1996, Movie]

Everyone Says I Love You: Review

Dancing fools: Alan Alda and Goldie Hawn

"What is this?" asks Park Avenue liberal Bob (Alan Alda) about some bit of familial chaos. "Noel Coward with hockey?" We wish. This misbegotten musical mishmash is predicated on the willfully wrongheaded notion that American popular songs of the '30s and '40s -- from "My Baby Just Cares for Me" to "Makin' Whoopie" -- are strong enough to withstand the most amateurish performance. They're not. Director Woody Allen cast the project without regard for musical training or inclination, and the results are deeply mixed: Goldie Hawn, Tim Roth and Alda can sing; Allen, Edward Norton and Julia Roberts can't. Drew Barrymore seems to be able to, but she's dubbed. This leaden homage to classic Hollywood farces about madcap millionaires revolves around a family of Park Avenue ditzes who fall in and out of love with New York, social causes and one another. Precocious Djuna (Natasha Lyonne) -- as in Djuna Barnes, you just know; because her dad, Joe Berlin, is a writer who lives in Paris and is played by Woody Allen -- narrates, and lots of silly but not particularly funny things happen. The sight of Joe's bumbling attempts to pick up the gangly Von (Roberts) is just excruciating, pure shtick that a personable 20-year-old might pull off, but that's positively creepy on the 60-year-old Allen.

TV Guide Spotlight

Photo courtesy John Clifford/Miramax Films International

Everyone Says I Love You

[1996, Movie]

Everyone Says I Love You: Review

Advertisement

TV Guide Spotlight

Related Websites