Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Betsy Aidem, Ethan Philips, Jamie Buckley, Paula Plum, Nancy Giles, Susan Pourfar, Tom Kemp.

Woody Allen has the most innate ability to bring the peculiarities of death, of outraged calculated murder and righteous despair to any party and then show them to be the most perfect illusions and delusions of the mind. It is a rare quality to showcase an individual and their complete neurosis and give them hope and macabre playfulness.

This ability resounds throughout the vast majority of his films and in Irrational Man that sense of mischief, of careful planning and drawing the audience in to the unfolding spectacle is, whilst not in the same league as the outstanding Blue Jasmine, a film bordering on the impeccable and the conscious macabre.

College Professor Abe Lucas is in crisis, one that is driven by circumstances and as a charismatic philosophy student and Professor, the extent of his malaise and his lack of meaning in life, circumstances are just too bold to be handled with anything but despair.

Jaoquin Pheonix, working with writer and director Woody Allen for the first time brings depth to Abe Lucas that might have been lost in many of Woody Allen’s former leading men with the exception of Alan Alda and the transition between a man teetering on the edge of gaping abyss and one finding new exuberance in life is one to relish.

The subject of murder is always one that gets even the least talkative person wondering and theorising out loud and the death of a senior local judge has the town folk casting their suspicions with a wide net. In typical Allen fashion, the plot grows bolder the longer it goes on and what could have been a mawkish look into the mind of a man whose life has lost appeal suddenly transforms into a film that delivers wonderful cynicism on the way life is viewed as both easy to control and one that can be manufactured to mean more than it actually does.

With Emma Stone once more captivating the screen and Joaquin Phoenix delivering a very strong performance, Irrational Man is not an unreasonable addition to the Woody Allen cinematic output and whilst not hitting the beautiful heights associated with Blue Jasmine nevertheless craves the attention of his fans. An enjoyable macabre look into the world of the existential lessons and the theory that could we murder someone if it was the right reasons.

Ian D. Hall