Rent The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

The Gloss-Adjusters - The Curse of the Jade Scorpion review by CH

By way of Alice and Oedipus Wrecks, matters magical recur in Woody Allen's films. With The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), they returned to prove a close run with The Purple Rose of Cairo and would remain way ahead of Midnight in Paris's repetitive hackney vehicle.

The proportion of Allen's period settings increases steadily against those in the here and now - though, come to think of it, Annie Hall is now closer in time to the 1940 of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion than it is to 2020. Temporal concerns soon vanish as the camera lights upon the office in which Allen himself is one of the staff of an insurance firm's claims investigators. This is as brown-hued as much of the film, a place promptly lit up by Helen Hunt who has been sent to impose efficiency measures upon an outfit which has given free rein to Allen's handy way with instinct and lowlife contacts (his jacket, though, is well cut).

A path is set for conflict and badinage, with Helen Hunt displaying - whether by command or subconscious - some of the mannerisms and facial expressions which were once Diane Keaton's. A nice touch is that she is an hour late for a meeting in a bar. It does not give away too much to say that when both are prevailed upon to join a works' outing (if one can call a gathering at the Rainbow Room such a thing), events take a different turn as a hypnotist sets to work upon them. While they speak, so many inner thoughts emerge that they would have Freud wishing he'd taken shorthand lessons (a phrase which just occurred to me - perhaps I could offer it to Allen, a small offering for all that he has provided).

Crime ensues. And with it there appears, well-nigh shimmeringly, Charlize Theron in a long white dress, with her hair and cigarette so well poised that she is more than a tribute to Veronica Lake (who could not have away with some of the salty lines uttered here).

To give prominence to the women present here should not overshadow the effective turns by seen-it-all guys Dan Aykroyd and Wallace Shawn on the staff (“you look like my Uncle Jerry right after the United Parcels truck hit him”).

Allen's roots have always been is night-club sketches. He is not one of nature's plotters. The same can be said of some novelists. Their skill is in finding ways around a little local difficulty (think how short are the chapters in War and Peace). With The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Allen has a more cohesive plot than he did in another period number Bullets Over Broadway, which was no match for the front- and back-stage about-turns of Michael Frayn's play Noises Off.

Well, one should not pre-empt too much of what is on offer here, all of which can be summarised in Allen's retort when caught by surprise: “I wasn't spying - I was rummaging.”

Period comedy noir. - The Curse of the Jade Scorpion review by Steve

This is a screwball pastiche of film noir, set in the '40s. Woody Allen stars as an insurance claims detective who works by intuition, like Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity. He constantly clashes with the company's efficiency expert (Helen Hunt), newly appointed to bring the company in line with modern practices.

The bickering colleagues are programmed to steal jewels using their inside information at the suggestion of a hypnotist. And just for fun the crooked magician gets them to fall in love with each other on hearing the trigger word. Woody tried to get Jack Nicholson or Tom Hanks to star. It's hardly surprising they turned it down, so verminously is the lead character described.

Given that the period setting made this the most expensive of Allen's films, Woody elected to play the part himself. And he is great at the back-and-forth duel of smart-ass repartee. But he's clearly too old to be dallying with Helen Hunt, never mind Charlize Theron as the fast talking dames.

Even so, Woody and Theron's scenes are a blast, and clearly reference Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep. She is made-over magnificently into a forties femme fatale. The Chandler-esque dialogue rarely flags. It looks amazing and the period details are superb. Once again, the critics piled on and it flopped. But it deserves so much better.