Irrational Man

I am not a huge fan of Woody Allen (other than Midnight in Paris, which is one of my all-time favorites) but the previews for Irrational Man intrigued me so I decided to see it last night (I fear my late night Sunday excursions to the Broadway Theatre are numbered).  Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) arrives as a new philosophy professor at a small New England college suffering from existential ennui.  He eventually begins an empty affair with a married chemistry professor (Parker Posey) and a romance with Jill (Emma Stone), a student infatuated with his dark side.  He quotes Dostoevsky in the classroom and keeps a copy of Crime and Punishment, with passages highlighted, on his desk.  Like Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, Abe decides to murder a complete stranger because he feels that it would be to the greater good and the petty rules of middle class society do not apply to him.  Unlike Raskolnikov, who is tormented by what he has done, Abe finds renewed meaning in life and comes alive.  Jill eventually figures out what Abe has done and, like Sonya in Crime and Punishment, she becomes Abe's conscience when she urges him to confess.  Will Abe find redemption as Raskolnikov does?  The story is definitely interesting and the themes are thought-provoking (I was reminded of an intense discussion with a group of friends at a bar in downtown Denver about situational ethics where I said something very similar to what Jill says to Abe as she confronts him) but I don't think Allen quite pulls it off.  The dialogue (and there is a lot of dialogue, particularly when characters are walking from one place to another) is extremely stilted and contrived.  Even philosophy majors (and I know a few!) don't quote Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Kant constantly in everyday life.  Phoenix and Stone do the best they can with the material but it still feels like they are reading pages of script with grim faces and I found it hard to care about them.  I found the students to be incredibly naive, especially in the Russian roulette scene, and the acting from the minor characters is, at times, completely laughable (they are trying so hard to be earnest).  The murder mystery also seems a bit implausible.  Jill figures out the entire complicated scenario during a conversation at dinner and then just happens to run into people who can give her proof.  Even the twist at the end of the movie felt a bit hokey rather than dramatic.  I found the relationship between a college professor and a student to be somewhat troubling.  Abe and Jill conduct their affair quite openly and I can tell you unequivocally, having taught on the college level, that it certainly wouldn't be condoned on campus and I can't imagine any parents who would be as accepting as Jill's (they invite him over for dinner!).  Clearly, Allen has no concept of appropriate boundaries in light of his own personal life.  The premise of Irrational Man is note-worthy but the execution of it is not.  Read Crime and Punishment instead and, if you want to watch an excellent Woody Allen film, find a copy of Midnight in Paris.