Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Woody Allen’s Art Imitates Life — Again

Woody Allen’s latest movie finally has a trailer. And the plot is, well, a little problematic.

“Irrational Man,” starring fellow MOT Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, promises another older-man-falls-in-love-with-young-muse, thinks-it-will-solve-inadequacies kind of story. According to the trailer, Phoenix plays philosophy teacher Abe Lucas, who joins a college faculty while grappling with an existential crisis. Lucky for him, he meets pretty young thing Emma Stone. One sunset-beach scene later, and our man Abe seems to have found the meaning of life.

I’m willing give Allen the benefit of the doubt — I have loved many, many of his movies. But personally, my tolerance-level for this kind of plot — especially given — is on a steep decline.

Watch the trailer here:

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.