It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I liked watching this movie, it's very funny. It provides for a fitful afternoon full of witty dialogue and interesting sequence. The film is definitely original, all of it could've taken place in a theater. The director's done a good job, characters seem to know what they're doing and in general all of it provides a nice evolving story of about 10 people, who are amazingly easy to follow through the different options they have in choosing their partners. Indeed, all the options are pursued in this movie. I liked the way how fast and well all the characters spoke. The film itself is a quite fast-paced one.All in all - it's a romantic comedy. That's what is prevailing, although there are very sad moments.

An interesting experiment: telling the same story, intercut, in both comic and serious versions. Lots of striking moments, and some good acting (although Will Ferrell - as much as I'm a fan - trying to be 'serious' didn't really work for me). Also, the bookend device setting up the idea (two writers talking at a restaurant about the differences between comedy and tragedy) is clunky and a little on the nose. Still, a worthwhile attempt to look at how we tell stories, and by extension how we look at life. Allen's later films may not quite be at the level of his early work, but you gotta admire a filmmaker still trying to look at the big questions 40 years into his career.

"Comic or tragic, the most important thing to do is to enjoy life while you can. Because we only go round once, and when it's over, it's over. And, perfect cardiogram or not, when you least expect it, it could end like (snaps fingers) that."The general opinion about Melinda & Melinda is pretty mixed. I fully expected this to be one of Allen's weaker movies, but I ended up enjoying the heck out of it. I don't know if my enjoyment was because of my recent infatuation with Radha Mitchell, or if the movie really was just that good. Whatever the reason, I'm convinced that this movie is sorely underrated. A group of friends sits at a table at a restaurant, and listens to two versions of a story; one comic, and the other tragic. The stories are both played out with completely different actors; save for the character of Melinda (played by Radha Mitchell), who arrives unexpectedly in the middle of a dinner party in both stories. I know that may sound a little confusing, in a movie that questions whether the essence of life is comic or tragic, it works well.Three complaints: some of the humor was hit-and-miss, the script was a little too unfocused to communicate the themes of comedy and tragedy in a way that presented a totally focused point, and Ferrell didn't have a perfect handle on the "Woody Allen role" (though I can't really think of who could have done it better).  Those are the only less- than-favorable comments that I have to make. I thought the film as a whole was a combination of a great cast and smart writing, and those are the main things I look for in anything Allen directs. This is a traditional Woody Allen movie. More Annie Hall than Match Point. Which means it's very verbose, focused on a specific type of people that you only find in New York City, and it has his trademark humor. I would hesitate to recommend this to an Allen novice, but if you know what you're getting into and you "get it", then you might enjoy Melinda & Melinda as much as I did.

Can't remember an Allen movie I actually liked, but I decided to give this movie a shot nonetheless. The concept was very delightful, but sure enough, Allen is still bad.We all know the usual mannerism of Will Ferrell, but much like every other character in this movie, his delivery was more like an imitation of Allen himself - down to the stuttering. I completely agree with another reviewer who questioned "How many actors can he get to stand in for his own neurotic, compulsive über-New Yorker persona?"Allen's directing style is very distinguished, but I'd say more like repetitive. He's basically producing never ending remakes of the same story with the same characters. The dialogue was horrendous. Wooden clichés sprinkled with occasional fancy words. Hobie considers himself to be an intellect (like all the characters that are projections of Allen) yet he speaks and stutters like a 10-year-old. Then, in the middle of mindless repetitive ramblings where he goes on and on and on about some extremely mundane topic, he throws in a completely random reference to Dostoyevsky or Kieślowski. Wha? Worst thing is - I really think that Woody is giving himself pat on the back for the "ingenious" cultural references. The cinematography wasn't a treat, either. In one of the restaurant scenes the camera sweep was so bad it was painful to watch.Without giving out too much about the ending, the dialogue was so embarrassingly corny, I thought it was a dream sequence until the credits began to roll on the screen. The ending could have been cobbled together by an average 12-year-old fan-fiction writer.