The world is run by fear, my friend
"How did you lose your virginity?" This is the first
question asked of faux-interviewees in Edward Burns'
faux-documentary-style romantic paean to the city he
loves, Sidewalks of New York. It's an arresting
way to start a movie, even if the answers are familiar
-- in high school, in college, in a car, in a
whorehouse with a girl named Cherry Pie. Actually,
what's most arresting is the city that surrounds them,
the streets so busy with traffic and preoccupied
passersby, the characters' concerns seem so naïve and
sweet, so pre-11 September. In fact, Burns's film was
scheduled to open in mid-September, pushed back to
show "appropriate" respect and released to celebrate
the city as it was.
This context makes Sidewalks instantly
nostalgic; its smallness, its limitations and
annoyances, make a peculiar sense. The characters,
naïve and nattering, exist in a perversely and
suddenly pristine moment, fixated on their efforts to
find love, sex or self-reaffirming reflections of
themselves. Sidewalks is what it sounds like: a
Woody Allen movie. It's a better one than Woody Allen
himself has made in a while, borrowing heavily from
Husbands and Wives in attitude and technique,
but it's still a Woody Allen movie.
As it begins, Tommy (Burns), a producer at (the
fictional) Entertainment This Week, is kicked
out of his girlfriend's apartment (he wants kids, she
doesn't, which lays out his earnestness if not exactly
his sensitivity, right off). Lucky for him, Tommy is
invited to stay with his mentor in work and romance,
Carpo (Dennis Farina), who offers the following
advice: "Nothing heals a broken heart faster than a
fresh piece of ass." And voila: at the local video
store (actually, Mrs. Hudson's), Tommy and sixth-grade
teacher Maria (Rosario Dawson) meet cute, as both are
trying to rent Breakfast at Tiffany's. In other
words, a first date is inevitable, and for this event,
Carpo suggests that Tommy put cologne on his
testicles, counsel that the apparently intelligent
Tommy inexplicably takes without question. Maria is
suitably alarmed at this and besides that, a little
skittish, being recently divorced from
doorman/musician Benjamin (David Krumholtz). He's
currently pursuing Ashley (Brittany Murphy), an NYU
student/waitress originally from Iowa, who is
currently bedding dentist Griffin (Stanley Tucci), who
is married to real estate agent Annie (Heather
Graham), who is showing apartments to and flirting
with Tommy.
This roundelay (with appropriate homaging to Max
Ophul's La Ronde) involves repeated efforts to
define love, commitment, deceit, levels of authentic
New Yorkness ("bridge and tunnel" vs. upper East
Side), obsession, and oh, I don't know, availability
(Griffin tells Ashley he is "technically" available,
as he has an "understanding"; she cleverly retorts, is
this understanding "between you and your wife or you
and your dick?"). When asked by the anonymous
interviewer to define the word "cheat," most everyone
has a sad story (except Griffin, for whom cheating is
a masculine right). Where Tommy laments the loss of
love that precedes cheating, and Ben sees it as a function of age (if you're too young, you can't help
yourself), Annie has a more philosophical take on it:
"People cheat because they're afraid. The world is run
by fear, my friend."
While such trivial pronouncements and the predictable
situations that generate them tend to be tedious and
self-important, the film clicks along with Frank
Prinzi's dynamic handheld camerawork, documentary
editor David Greenwald's styley jumpcuts, and the
terrific de-lyricized Cake soundtrack. Also to its
credit, most all the movie's characters have
unsympathetic moments (and Griffin, obviously, has
many), and these are the film's most compelling.
Still, and even with its unanticipated, insta-documentish relevance, Sidewalks of New York offers only slight insights to go with its smart surface.
